Audio Transcript

Welcome to the Ask Pastor John podcast, especially if this is your first time here — welcome. I’m Tony, the host, and I pitch questions to longtime pastor and author John Piper. That’s his name. We talk about life’s most challenging questions, and what the Bible has to say about those challenging questions. Maybe you just happened to see this episode online, or maybe someone sent you this link, a friend or someone. Welcome.

We do all this by taking questions from our audience, and today’s question comes from a listener named Rebecca. “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast. It has blessed me, guided me, and strengthened my faith over the years. My question for you is this: How would you explain your experience of joy in God to a curious, unchurched non-Christian? Where would you begin? And how would you do it with language a non-Christian could easily follow?”

Okay, let’s do it this way: I’ll write a short letter to an imaginary unbeliever named Michael, who has almost no experience of church or religious language, and who has asked me this very question, to tell him what it means when I say, “I experience joy in God.” Here we go.

Dear Michael,

You asked me what I mean when I say, “I experience joy in God.” Thanks for asking. There are not many things, Michael, that I enjoy talking about more than what I value, what I treasure, most. You already know that my experience of God is based on the Bible. I believe it is the word of God. I believe that if you read it, especially its portrayal of Jesus, you can hear the ring of truth, the self-authenticating reality of God breaking through. So, the first thing to say is that when the Bible talks about our relationship with God, it rings with the language of pleasure.

In other words, I’m not just responding to the Bible with my own peculiar personality. No, I’ve been told by the Bible, by God himself through the Bible, that I should experience God as my pleasure. It’s what God demands, not just what I desire. God’s word is lavish with pleasure language. So, let me give you some examples so you can get the feel of what I mean. You can ask me sometime later, and I’ll show you these places actually in the Bible itself so you can read them for yourself. I think that would be helpful.

Psalm 16:11: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Psalm 32:11: “Be glad in the Lord.”
Psalm 19:10: “More to be desired are they [your words, O Lord] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”
Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news . . . of happiness.”
Philippians 4:11, 13: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content . . . through [Christ] who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:4, just a little earlier in the chapter: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”
Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in perfect peace . . . because he trusts in you.”
Psalm 4:7: “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.”
Psalm 63:1–3: “My soul thirsts for you . . . because your steadfast love is better than life.”

That’s for starters, Michael, scraping the surface of the Bible. Peace, rejoicing, contentment, happiness, gladness, delight, satisfaction, pleasures — all of it sweeter than honey, all of it better than wine, all of it better than life itself, as full as it can be, as long as it can be.

Now the question is, How do I experience God that way? How does John Piper do that? And the first thing to say is that God himself has taken out of the way the greatest obstacle to my happiness — namely, my ugly, God-belittling sin, and his just and holy wrath and fury against it. He sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to die in my place. The Bible says that he became a curse for me. He condemned my sin in the death of his own Son. And he did this for absolutely everyone, indiscriminately, who would believe in him.

So, when I receive Jesus Christ — when I take him, welcome him, embrace him as my Savior and my Lord and the treasure of my life — God sees me as united to Jesus, so that his death counts as my punishment, and his righteousness counts as my right standing before God. So, now there’s no condemnation for me. I’m forgiven for everything. No guilt, no punishment, no hell, no fear; accepted, adopted, loved, befriended, embraced — as a father running out to welcome a long-lost son.

That’s the beginning. That’s the foundation, Michael, of all my joy. Everything great and beautiful and valuable and desirable and satisfying in God is no longer dangerous for me. It’s like a mountain range of endless discovery of more and more beauty, where I will never fall off a ledge and die, but go further up and further in forever and ever, because God is infinite and I’m not.

Michael, every day I read my Bible, and in the Bible, God himself, through the words that he inspired, speaks to me — and I speak back to him. This is a real conversation. I don’t hear voices; I read his inspired word addressed to his people, to me. I hear the voice of God in his precious word, and it is sweeter than honey. That’s what the Bible calls fellowship with God. And every day, as we enjoy this fellowship, he shows me glimpses of his greatness and his beauty and his worth: the very things that I was made for. I was made to see and enjoy God in his greatness, his beauty, his worth.

And you know this is true, Michael — you know this. You were made to see and enjoy greatness and beauty and worth and love. Everybody was. God is the sum of all greatness, and all beauty, and all value and worth, and all love. And he lets us enjoy him through his word, and through his world, which also reveals his beauty and greatness. And when I face the ugliness and the sin and the suffering and the disasters of the world, he reminds me of spectacular promises that I will one day be with him — free from all pain, all sin, all depression, all discouragement, all anxieties — in a brand new, magnificent body.

And with that hope, which he renews every day in me through his word, he gives me strength to go out into the world and to try to be useful to people by doing good and pointing people to everlasting satisfaction in him (which is what I’m doing right now, I hope). And even though I’m not perfect, Michael — you know that pretty well — he helps me do that, and he forgives me for my failures, my shortcomings. And at the end of the day, my conscience is clean. Oh, the sweetness and joy of a clear conscience. My conscience is clean because there has been some measure of obedience. And because of his precious, precious forgiveness through Jesus, I can lay my head down at night on a pillow with peace and joy.

You know that’s what I want for you, Michael. That’s why I’m writing this letter, and I’m happy to talk anytime you want to take it further.

Your friend,John

One of the reasons to read the Old Testament is so you can be shocked at the right times when reading the New Testament. Philippians 2, for example, is a wonderful, glorious passage — but it becomes a shocking passage when read in light of Isaiah 45.

Isaiah 45 records the prophet’s oracle concerning Cyrus, king of Persia. Despite being a pagan ruler, Cyrus is the Lord’s anointed, his christ with a lowercase c (Isaiah 45:1). Though Cyrus does not know Yahweh (God’s personal name, Exodus 3:14), Yahweh knows Cyrus, names Cyrus, calls Cyrus, and equips Cyrus to fulfill God’s purposes by restoring the fortunes of Israel following their exile to Babylon (Isaiah 45:4–5). And Yahweh acts in this way so that all people will know that “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5–6).

“One of the reasons to read the Old Testament is so that you can be shocked when reading the New Testament.”

In fact, the uniqueness of the Lord becomes the dominant theme in the oracle of Isaiah 45. Again and again, Yahweh asserts his unique divine prerogatives. He alone is the Creator God. He forms light and creates darkness (Isaiah 45:7). He sends showers to the earth and causes plants to grow (Isaiah 45:8). He is the potter who forms the clay and the father who makes all mankind (Isaiah 45:9).

God Over All

Isaiah draws our attention back to Genesis 1:

Thus says the Lord,who created the heavens     (he is God!),who formed the earth and made it      (he established it;he did not create it empty,     he formed it to be inhabited!). (Isaiah 45:18)

Not only did he alone create the world, but he alone governs it from beginning to end.

Thus says the Lord,     the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him [Cyrus]:“Ask me of things to come;     will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?I made the earth     and created man on it;it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,     and I commanded all their host.” (Isaiah 45:11–12)

And not only is Yahweh alone the Creator God; he alone is “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isaiah 45:21). Yahweh is distinct from all the gods of the nations, since the pagans “carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save” (Isaiah 45:20). Yet even the nations will one day recognize the futility of their idols and acknowledge the God of Israel (Isaiah 45:14).

There Is No Other

Again and again in this chapter, the Lord, through his prophet, shouts that he alone is God. Hear the trumpet blast of God’s absolute uniqueness sound seven times in this one chapter.

Verse 5: “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.”
Verse 6: “There is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
Verse 14: “They will plead with you, saying: ‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.’”
Verse 18: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
Verse 21: “Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.”
Verse 22: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”
Verse 24: “Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength.”

And that is why it is no surprise in this passage when Yahweh declares,

By myself I have sworn;     from my mouth has gone out in righteousness     a word that shall not return:“To me every knee shall bow,     every tongue shall swear allegiance.” (Isaiah 45:23)

As the only supreme God, he has no one greater by whom he can swear (Hebrews 6:13), and his sure and certain word establishes that all shall bow to him and him alone. Every tongue will confess that Yahweh is Lord.

One Shocking Name

But what is not surprising in Isaiah 45 becomes unbelievably shocking in Philippians 2. Like Isaiah, Paul is celebrating the anointed of the Lord, Christ Jesus himself. Whereas Cyrus did not know the Lord, Jesus does, and his humility and obedience is the model for our own. Jesus humbled himself, and his obedience extended all the way to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6–9).

And then the turn. Because of his humility and his obedience, God has highly exalted him. He has given him the supreme name in the cosmos. And what does this exaltation and name-giving mean? It means that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

“Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself.”

Paul knows what he is doing. He knows that this fundamental Christian confession — Jesus Christ is Lord — does not merely declare him to be a human ruler like Herod or Caesar. He knows that he is echoing the words of Isaiah in that great monotheistic chapter. The chapter that rang with “there is no other god” is now shockingly, surprisingly, incredibly redeployed to declare that Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself, come in the flesh to rescue and redeem, to suffer and to save.

Yes, Paul knows what he is doing. And he knows that he’s not the first to do so.

Jesus Is Lord

The shepherds heard it first, declared by angel tongues on the night of Jesus’s birth. The good news of great joy for all people shockingly brought together Isaiah’s words in a simple sentence. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Not merely the Lord’s Christ (like David or even Cyrus). This Christ is the Lord himself, now laying aside his divine privileges and emptying himself, humbling himself, taking on the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of men.

Now when the ends of the earth turn to be saved, they don’t merely turn to the Creator God. They turn to the God-man from Nazareth, the boy from Bethlehem. Jesus is Lord, and there is no other. Jesus is Lord, and there is none like him.

The longer you fight against your sin, the more temptations you may face to no longer fight so hard. Once, perhaps, your zeal burned; your spiritual blood boiled. But as months passed and years rolled by, desires for a more comfortable Christianity somehow wedged beneath your armor.

Paul talks of killing sin, starving sin (Romans 8:13; 13:14), but you have begun to wonder whether a less decisive, more long-term approach may work just as well. Jesus speaks of tearing out an eye and cutting off a hand (Matthew 5:29) — you theoretically agree but, if honest, can hardly imagine self-denial so extreme.

You may have once found relish in the righteous ferocity of a man like John Owen, who wrote of walking “over the bellies of his lusts” (Works, 6:14). But some time has passed since your boots have trampled any lusts. And as another Puritan once put it, you may feel tempted to speak of your sins as Lot did of Zoar: “Is it not a little one?” (Genesis 19:20). Time makes way for many little sins — and little sins, in time, make way for larger ones.

The softening happens slowly, by degrees, as I can attest. And often, what we need most in such seasons is a righteous trumpet blast, a rousing note that shakes the bones and awakens us back to reality. Such the apostle John gives to us in his first letter:

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. (1 John 3:9)

“Time makes way for many little sins — and little sins, in time, make way for larger ones.”

To the question, “Can the born again make a practice of sinning?” John responds simply, clearly, unequivocally: impossible.

Let No One Deceive You

Recent events had cast a shadow over the community that received John’s letter. We catch a glimpse in 1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out.” Once, a group of seeming brothers and sisters belonged to us; now, John can speak of them only as they.

And they did not leave quietly. No, they left speaking strange new ideas about Jesus — that he didn’t really come in the flesh (1 John 4:2–3), that he wasn’t really the Christ (1 John 2:22). And with this new theology came a new and twisted spirituality. Many, it seems, professed to know God while walking in darkness (1 John 1:6), as if somehow one could be righteous without doing righteousness (1 John 3:7). They claimed new life; they kept old sins.

Some scholars call them “proto-gnostics,” forerunners of the heresy that would bedevil the church in the next century. John himself speaks with a sharper edge: they are liars, antichrists, children of the devil (1 John 1:6; 2:18; 3:10). Tough words from the beloved apostle. But the church desperately needed to hear them.

No One Born of God Keeps on Sinning

John knew the church was standing firm for the moment. In fact, he wrote his letter in large part to assure them that eternal life was theirs (1 John 5:13). Their faith in Christ was steady, their love for the brothers deep, their righteousness evident. Though not perfect (1 John 1:8–9), they belonged to God.

Yet John knew the power of flesh-pleasing lies, especially when given time to work. He knew too how demoralizing it could be to watch a brother-in-arms lay down his weapons and cross enemy lines. Perhaps the church wouldn’t embrace the heresy, but their hands might grow slack around the sword hilt. They might wonder if the Christian life really requires such ruthlessness against sin. Some might wander into a “practice of sinning,” less afraid of what such a practice might mean.

So, John writes, “Little children, let no one deceive you” (1 John 3:7). Remember, little children, that sin is lawless. Remember that Christ is sinless. Remember that you are new.

Sin Is Lawless

When a professing Christian begins to make “a practice of sinning” (1 John 3:9), a deep yet subtle change has already taken place. Somewhere along the line, sin has become less serious in his eyes: no longer black, but gray; no longer damnable, but understandable. A slow hardening has crept over his conscience. Where he once blushed, he shrugs.

John will have none of it. He had stood on Calvary. He had watched God’s wrath against sin swallow the sun — had seen the wages of sin stain the dirt red. And so he writes, “Everyone who makes a practice of sin also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

Woven into the DNA of sin is a lawless, traitorous, insolent, anti-Christ character. It cannot bear God’s authority; it cannot bend to Christ’s rule. And though isolated instances of sin do not amount to a life of lawlessness — only “a practice of sinning” does (1 John 3:4) — even the smallest sins are lawlessness in utero. Every sin bears some resemblance to the nails and spear that pierced our Lord; every sin sounds something like, “Crucify!” So, if nourished and cherished, if cultivated and indulged, any sin can take the heart captive to a kind of rebellion that cannot abide with Christ.

We will continue to sin this side of heaven — on that point John is utterly clear (1 John 1:8). Yet as D.A. Carson writes, sin never becomes something less than “shocking, inexcusable, forbidden, appalling, out of line with what we are as Christians.” “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil” (1 John 3:8) — and every sin, however small, beats with his lawless heart.

Christ Is Sinless

If in sin we see absolute darkness, utter lawlessness, in Christ we see absolute light, utter purity. The two are mortal enemies, opposite poles: the one crooked, the other straight; the one night, the other day; the one hell, the other heaven. And therefore, because of both who Christ is and what Christ does, “no one who abides in him keeps on sinning” (1 John 3:6).

“If we abide in him, sin cannot abide in us — not persistently, not presumptuously, not peacefully.”

Consider, first, who Christ is. “In him there is no sin,” John writes (1 John 3:5). How then can anyone abide in him — live in him, commune with him, worship him — and keep sinning as before? We could sooner light a fire under the sea or breathe deeply on the moon. Christ holds no tinder for sin; he gives no oxygen to lawlessness. If we abide in him, then, sin cannot abide in us — not persistently, not presumptuously, not peacefully.

Then, second, consider what Christ does. “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins” (1 John 3:5). Or again, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). He came, the Sinless One, to make many sinless ones — first by forgiving and justifying us, and then by gradually yet ceaselessly purifying us.

In a season of encroaching sin, then, we do well to ask ourselves, “Jesus came to destroy the devil’s works — and will I endorse them? Jesus died to take away my sins — and will I now take them back? Will I roll the stone back over his tomb; will I take down his cross?”

You Are New

So far, John has bid the church to look outside themselves. Now, however, he tells them to look at themselves. For sin is lawless, Christ is sinless, and they are new. Three times in one sentence, the apostle points to their newness in Christ:

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. (1 John 3:9)

Conversion involves not just a change of mind, but a change of heart and soul — a change so great it can rightly be called new birth. And new birth brings the truth about sin and Christ down into the deepest places.

By new birth, we not only see sin as lawless, but we have hearts whose lawlessness has been replaced by God’s life-giving law (Jeremiah 31:33). The pen of the Spirit has reached where ours never could. And by new birth, we not only see Jesus as sinless, but we enjoy him as glorious, the Spirit opening our eyes to a Beauty far beyond sin (Ezekiel 36:27). We have felt, deep down, the blessing of obedience without burden (1 John 5:3), the delight of abiding in the one who knows no darkness (1 John 1:5).

Pulsing in these words of John, then, is not only a mighty cannot — “he cannot keep on sinning” — but a mighty can. However strong temptation seems, and however weak we feel, we can kill sin and cleave to Christ. We can raise these weary feet and flee again; we can lift these tired arms and strike again. We can put our face in the Bible and our knees on the ground. We can say no to the loudest urges of the flesh and yes to the quietest promptings of the Spirit.

Our ‘Truceless Antagonism’

The battle against sin lasts long, even all life long. But in Christ, we have a different disposition, a better bent, a new life that will never die. And buried deep in our spiritual DNA is a ruthless opposition to sin — a “truceless antagonism,” as Robert Law calls it.

Such antagonism will look strange and unnatural to the world around us; at our worst, we too may wonder if the Christian life can run on roads less narrow. But when we remember what sin really is, who Christ really is, and who we really are, then even seemingly small compromises — little lies, secret glances, prayerless mornings, quiet bitterness — will appear for what they are: Lawless guides leading us from Christ. Dark hands stealing our hearts. Utter contradictions of our new birth.

And then our zeal will burn again. And then our blood will boil again. And then our boots will feel again the bellies of our lusts. For “no one born of God makes a practice of sinning” (1 John 3:9). And in Christ, we are born of God — irrevocably, eternally, powerfully new.