I’ll begin by stating the aim of this message six different ways:

My aim is that those of you who preach or teach the word of God would make clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. And I mean the killing of our own sin, not the sins of others.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between canceled sin and conquered sin.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people.
. . . that you would make clear that in releasing his people from guilt, Christ effectively secured their lives of righteousness in this world.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between justification by Christ’s blood and progressive sanctification by that same blood.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the tearing of Christ’s flesh in crucifixion and the tearing out of your eye in the battle against lust.

I chose to pursue this aim with you because it seems to me that in the last forty years or so of the gospel-centered emphasis in America, there has not been a biblically proportionate emphasis on preaching holiness of life and godliness and righteousness and radical, countercultural Christlikeness. Instead, it seems to me that to be gospel-centered has often filtered down to the pew as something like this: “Preach the gospel to yourself every day,” which is heard to mean, Rehearse the good news that you are loved, accepted, and forgiven. No condemnation. No judgment. No hell. Acquitted. Vindicated. Clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Saved for More and Greater

Here’s the problem with that emphasis. Suppose you are condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead tomorrow morning. But when they come to open your cell at dawn, instead of taking you to the gallows, they set you free because someone has volunteered to take your place. This would be the happiest experience of your life, at least up till that moment. Your heart would overflow with joy being free from condemnation and execution. And you would be full of tearful thankfulness for the substitute. This would be an absolutely overwhelming, all-embracing experience of joy.

Perhaps a year later the experience is still vivid and intense with happiness and thankfulness. And perhaps for the next five years you wake up every morning, and go to bed every night, preaching to yourself: “I’m not condemned! I’m not going to be hanged! I have a reprieve! No condemnation! No execution. No gallows! No punishment! Accepted! Forgiven!” Ten years later you are still preaching this same message to yourself. Thirty years later. Fifty years later. “I’m not going to be hanged! I’m not going to be hanged!”

You see the problem. There are vast reaches of the human heart — depths, heights, breadths — that can never be filled, never be satisfied, with that truncated gospel. We must have more than the message of justification. We must have more than: No condemnation. No hell. No guilt. Justification by faith is a means to something more and greater. The propitiation of God’s wrath is a means to something more and greater. Forgiveness of sins is a means to something more and greater. Escape from hell is a means to something more and greater. Redemption from slavery is a means to something more and greater.

Ultimately, finally, that “more and greater” is God himself. First Peter 3:18 puts it like this: “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” To see God. To know God. To have God as a companion. To enjoy God. To be irradiated with the glory of God. To finally, in some suitable measure, reflect God. To become, at last, a fitting echo of the excellence of God. Brothers and sisters, that is a million times greater than justification and forgiveness. Just as walking into heaven is a million times greater than walking out of hell. Because God is there. There is no comparing the pleasure of walking out of prison and walking into the arms of your wife.

But between the glories of justification and forgiveness that launch us by the blood of Christ into life, and final glorification with its perfected vision of God, and sinless savoring of his fellowship — between the first beginning and the final goal of our redeemed existence — there is the Christian life, a life of faith and hope and love and truth and righteousness and purity and holiness and courage, and countercultural conformity to Jesus over against selfishness and pride and greed and lust and rebellion and a hundred forms of worldliness.

Another Way of Preaching Grace

There is a kind of unhealthy preaching that focuses on holiness of life but in a way that fails to make plain the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It fails to make plain the relationship between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. And therefore holiness, in this kind of preaching, becomes a burden too great to bear. And people become despairing, or they become self-righteous, moral achievers.

“There is a way to preach that only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers.”

And there is a way to preach that is so allergic to biblical imperatives and commands and warnings that it never preaches with any sense of urgency about the biblical demand for holiness. It never says, “Tear out your eye because it’s better to lose one of your members than for your whole body be thrown the hell” (Matthew 5:29). It never says, “Pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). It never says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). It only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers. Grace to forgive sin, but not grace to kill sin.

My aim in this message is to plead for another way of preaching and teaching that commits neither of those two errors. My aim is that we would preach so as to show the people the effective connection — yes, even by grace to establish the effective connection — between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between canceled sin and conquered sin. Between the horrors of Christ’s suffering for us and the holiness of our life in him.

Canceled Sin and Conquered Sin

Of all the texts we could look at to make these connections (for example, Romans 8:4; Colossians 1:22; Hebrews 10:10), I want to look at two passages in 1 Peter. Let’s look first at 1 Peter 1:14–16.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Four observations from those three verses: First, holiness is commanded. “Be holy” in verse 15 is an imperative (geneitheite). Not a suggestion. But a command.

Second, God’s holiness is the ground of the command. Verse 16: “Be holy, for I am holy.”

Third, God’s holiness means that he is so separate from all that is ordinary, indeed all that is created, that he is in a class by himself, one of a kind — like the rarest diamond. We call this kind of separateness transcendence. And the Bible adds a moral dimension to this transcendence so that we call it transcendent purity or goodness.

God’s holiness means that he is perfectly separate from all that is finite and all that is defiled. Transcendent purity. And since God’s purity is not measured by anything outside himself, he is the measure of all purity and all goodness and all worth. For God to be actively holy, therefore, is for all his words, and all his attitudes, and all his actions to be in perfect harmony with the infinite value of his transcendent purity. That is what it means for God to be holy.

Fourth, therefore, our holiness derives from his. It means that all our attitudes and words and actions should be in harmony with his infinite worth. First Peter 1:14 fills out what it means for us to be holy as God is holy: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions [the word is simply “desires”] of your former ignorance.” Unholy desires flow from ignorance — of what? God. The worth of God. The greatness of God. The all-satisfying beauty of God. The holiness of God.

So, human holiness is the transformation of our knowledge, replacing “ignorance” (agnoia, verse 14) and the transformation of our “desires” so that they conform to the true worth of God and not to our former ignorance. Human holiness is to know the true greatness and beauty and worth of God, and to have desires that conform to that knowledge. They’re the attitudes and words and actions that follow.

Blood-Bought Ransom and Holy Conduct

Now comes the connection between the holiness of the Christian and the horrors of Christ’s suffering. Verse 17:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear [another imperative, like “be holy”] throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:17–19)

Now, notice carefully that there are two ways that Peter makes the connection between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holy conduct of the Christian.

‘Ransomed from Futile Ways’

The first is in verse 18 where he says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” He does not say we were ransomed from guilt, or from condemnation, or from Satan, or from hell. He says we were ransomed from “futile ways.” The word for “ways” (in verse 18) is the same word used for “conduct” in verse 15: “Be holy in all your conduct (anastrophei).” So, to show the parallel we can say (verse 18): You were ransomed from your futile “conduct” (anastropheis) by the precious blood of Christ.

Which means that when Christ died and shed his infinitely valuable blood, he purchased, by means of a ransom-payment, our transfer from futile conduct to holy conduct. He bought our holiness — our holy conduct. Not with perishable things like silver and gold (verse 18), but with the most precious thing in the world, the blood of the Son of God. That is what he paid for our holiness. That is what he paid to bring all our attitudes and words and actions into harmony with the infinite worth of God.

And the purchase was effective. Remember I used the word “effective” in each of my six statements of my aim for this message. I said my aim was a kind of preaching that makes clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Christ’s ransom-payment was not a failure. He didn’t shed his blood in vain. He obtained what he paid for. The holy conduct of God’s people is sure. Which is why the Bible repeatedly makes plain that if you don’t have this holiness of life, you have no warrant to think you are part of the ransomed. This is serious. Perhaps you can feel something of why this message feels so important to me.

‘Because You Were Ransomed’

I said there were two ways that Peter makes the connection in this passage between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holiness of the Christian. And the first way is that by his blood he effectively ransomed his people from futile conduct into holy conduct. He effectively obtained the holiness of his people.

Now, the second way is seen in the logical connection between verses 17 and 18. In the second half of verse 17 he gives the command: “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” [that is, be holy, for God is holy] and then comes a participle that functions as a ground (verse 18a): “ . . . knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways.” So, the logic connecting the two verses is: “Conduct yourselves in holiness, because you know you were ransomed from futile ways into holy ways.”

This is the preaching I am pleading for. Peter cries out to his congregations (the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia) — he cries out with a clear imperative, command, “Conduct yourselves in godly fear! Be holy, because your God is holy. Bend your whole life into harmony with the infinite worth of God in Christ. Make holiness complete in the fear of the Lord” (as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 7:1). And he gives the great ground: Because your freedom from the old, futile ways, and your new holy way of life in Christ Jesus, has been bought by the most precious reality in the world, the blood of Jesus.

It’s not as though God saw his kidnapped wife in the hands of the enemy and paid the ransom to have her back, and then watched as she walked free and, instead of coming home, went and shacked up with another man. It didn’t happen like that. That’s not the way to think about the blood of Jesus. It is not impotent. It is effective. It was not shed in vain. The ransom bought a new way of life for his people. They will walk in the way he bought. And if they don’t, they have no warrant to think they are his people.

You recall how Paul put it in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The new way of holy living for the redeemed has been prepared by God. And part of that preparation was the ransom of 1 Peter 1:18. God did not spill the blood of his Son in vain. The good works of his people were purchased — prepared. The command is to walk in the steps he obtained with his blood.

That We Might Live to Holiness

Now, look with me at 1 Peter 2:20–24. Let’s start in the middle of verse 20. Peter is talking to slaves, but what he says applies to all Christians:

. . . If when you do good and suffer for it you endure [that is, endure in faith and love — holiness of life], this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called [so, this is God’s will for you, his call on your life. This is the imperative of a new way of life: not returning evil for evil, but good for evil. Then comes the ground], because Christ also suffered for you.

So, God’s call on your life to live a holy, humble, patient, radically countercultural life of returning good for evil is based on the suffering of Christ for you. That’s what we saw in chapter 1. Now we see it again here.

But someone might say: wait a minute. You are interpreting the phrase “for you” in verse 21 (“Christ also suffered for you”) in a substitutionary way, but the very next phrase describes the death of Christ as an example, not a substitution. So, verse 21 goes on: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.” So, why do you take the words, “suffered for you,” to mean, “suffer in your place,” when the defining participle describes it as suffering to give you an example of how to live?

My answer is: I take the words this way because that’s where Peter goes in his explanation in verse 24. The death of Jesus “for you” (verse 21) is not simply to give you an example for how to live, but even more fundamentally to bear your sins (verse 24): “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” So, that’s the ground of the call on your life to return good for evil and walk in all holiness. And to make that crystal clear Peter adds at the end of verse 24 the purpose clause for the sin-bearing work of Christ, namely, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” — live to holiness. That we might be holy.

So, the life-altering logic is the same as 1 Peter 1:17–18. “Be holy, because God is holy, and conduct yourselves in godly fear, because he ransomed you from a futile way of life for a life of holiness by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”

“The sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian.”

And the logic here in 1 Peter 2:24 is that the sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Or as verse 21 says: we are called to return good for evil because Christ suffered “for us” — not only to give us an example, but also to bear our sins in his suffering for us.

So, my message is: Preach this! Preach the pursuit of holiness this way. Preach the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Preach the effective connection between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. Preach the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people. Preach the effective connection between the tearing off of the flesh of Jesus and the tearing out of our lustful eyes.

Five Reasons Preachers Avoid Holiness

I’d like to close by addressing five possible reasons some pastors don’t preach the pursuit of holiness with the kind of blood-bought urgency we find in the New Testament.

First, perhaps some have simply not seen the connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It’s just a blind spot in their biblical thinking. I hope this message helps remove that blind spot.

Second, perhaps some are reluctant to press the conscience of their people with the biblical demand for holiness because they fear the rebuke of Jesus that he gave to the lawyers when he said,

Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (Luke 11:46)

To such pastors I would plead that you not try to address a real, biblical danger in an unbiblical way. The point of this message is that the Christian fight for holiness is connected to the forgiveness of sins in a gloriously unique gospel way not found in any other religion. Namely, that the only sin that can be successfully fought is a forgiven sin. And not only that, but also since the forgiveness has been secured infallibly by the blood of Jesus, the fight will be successful. Get to know this pervasive New Testament dynamic of holiness, and you will not have to fear the rebuke of Jesus that you have made his yoke hard and his burden heavy. Just the opposite.

Third, some pastors avoid preaching on the urgency and necessity of holiness because their own secret lives are morally compromised. They are wasting their time on trifles. They are watching movies that fill their minds with worldliness, not godliness. They are dabbling in pornography, or worse. They are dishonest in their financial dealings. They continually overeat in bondage to food. They neglect the teaching of their children and don’t pray with their wives. They are starting to medicate with wine, which they once called freedom. Their casual mouth has become crude. They’ve grown weary of fruitful Bible study and are becoming second-handers, depending on other people’s sermons.

Is it any wonder that these pastors preach week in and week out on the grace of God to forgive sins, but rarely celebrate the glory of God’s grace to defeat sinning? They lift high the cross as a covering for all their sins, and never make the biblical connection that Christ was crucified to conquer pornography, crucified to conquer laziness, crucified to conquer gluttony, crucified to conquer dishonesty, crucified to bring back the joy of creating their own sermons.

“There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America.”

Fourth, some pastors avoid anything approaching a kind of preaching that would confront people with their sin and would risk making them unhappy. There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America, and who are not only hyper-sensitive to being offended, but in the pulpit are fearful of stirring up anyone’s displeasure. There are reasons for this kind of reluctance to preach the urgency of holiness, and one of them is a deep-seated insecurity that shows itself in a desperate need to be liked — to be approved by other people.

Such pastors need to dig down deep into their hearts, and perhaps into their past, to find why these insecurities have such a hold on them, and then, perhaps with the help of counselors, apply the sovereign grace of God more deeply to their own hearts than they ever have.

Finally, some pastors are so fearful of being labeled as conservative, or fundamentalist, or progressive, or woke, or whatever the circles they care about would look down on, that they avoid any radical, biblical command that would seem to put them in some camp that they don’t want to be part of.

So perhaps, for example, they will not deal with racial discrimination, because that will make them sound woke. Or they won’t deal with, say, modesty, or nudity in movies, because that will make them sound fundamentalist. Or they won’t deal with the fact that we are citizens of heaven first and not American first, because that will make them sound unpatriotic.

The remedy for this bondage to the opinions of others is first to become more like Jesus, who had this reputation (Mark 12:14): “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.”

And the second part of that remedy is to be so radically committed to all that the Bible teaches that just when people think they have you pegged in some camp, you bring out of your biblical treasure chest something that throws them completely off-balance — until it becomes well-known: you are nobody’s lackey. You do not live to please men, right or left, rich or poor, white or black, male or female. You march to the biblical drum, no matter what.

Power in the Blood

My prayer for you is that when all of these obstacles are out of the way, you would preach and teach and live in such a way as to help your people experience the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between the glorious justifying and glorious sanctifying effect of the precious blood of Christ. That you would sing with your people, and mean it:

Would you be free from the burden of sin?     There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.Would you o’er evil a victory win?     There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15279894/how-the-shield-of-faith-blocks-satanic-arrows

Brother preachers, Sunday morning has come upon you again. The call to proclaim God’s word beckons you to the pulpit, and what a mighty summons it is.

We are dispatched to our people with a word from God that aims to facilitate worship and be an act of worship. This is what is called expository exultation. Every week, brother, you are burdened with the glorious task to offer “both a rigorous intellectual clarification of the reality revealed through the words of Scripture and a worshipful embodiment of the value of that reality in [your] exultation over the word [you are] clarifying” (Expository Exultation, 16).

As I mount the pulpit, I am keenly aware of at least four realities reflected on the faces of my people as they look to me.

1. Weight of the Task

Pastors have the unique task of feeding the flock that Christ has obtained with his blood (John 21:15; Acts 20:28). Regular, healthy portions of God’s word constitute an essential food group in the church’s diet. The onus on the preacher as a chef — to prepare, cook, and serve an excellent faith-nourishing meal for his people — lends significant weight to the task at hand.

The weight becomes greater with the awareness of whom we prepare this weekly meal for. “Feed my lambs. . . . Tend my sheep. . . . Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). They are not strangers that have wandered into a random restaurant looking for food. Each Sunday morning, brother preacher, you stand before Jesus’s precious possession with the responsibility of shepherding “the flock of God that is among you” (1 Peter 5:2). Who is sufficient for these things?

2. Preacher as Herald

The identity of a preacher takes various shapes so that his responsibilities might be clearly illustrated. The preacher, as chef, lays aside his culinary hat and assumes the garb and posture of a sent herald (Romans 1:15).

The preacher is not tasked with giving a lecture or a nice talk on Sunday. While he must tell the Story, he is no mere storyteller. Inherent in his task as herald is delivering divinely sanctioned announcements with due urgency, and calling the people to respond appropriately to the God who has spoken and who speaks now in the preaching moment.

The preacher has a message from the King. As David Bauslin writes, “The gravity and importance of this vocation, as outlined in the sacred Scriptures and amply illustrated in the church’s history, surpass those of any other calling among men” (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 2433). Who is sufficient for these things?

3. Great Need of Your People

Every week there are as many needs in the congregation as there are people sitting in the pews. As the people of God gather, we come into worship with the smell and strain of the week on us. As you ascend into the pulpit and look at your people, tiredness, frustration, disappointment, joy, sorrow, brokenness, addictions, dreams, desires, hopes, desperation, longing, thankfulness, perplexity, boredom, and ten thousand other conditions look right back at you. Some had a good week. Others made a herculean effort just to show up. Not to mention what you, preacher, bring with you.

What does this vast array of people need every time our Lord’s church gathers? Do some need counsel for a better marriage? Yes. Do some need encouragement to persevere in holy singleness? No question. Are there some who need mercy for their doubt (Jude 22), admonition for their slothfulness, instruction for training in righteousness, and countless other tasks the word performs on its hearers (2 Timothy 3:16)? Absolutely.

Amid the great diversity of needs, however, the one unifying need of our people is to see glory weekly. If “the great aim of preaching is the white-hot worship of God’s people” (Expository Exultation, 14), the task can be accomplished only by regular sights of the beautiful glory of God.

“Amid the great diversity of needs, the one unifying need of our people is to see glory weekly.”

The preacher’s great aim in sermon preparation is to see glory and savor glory so that he can share glory with his people (“A Simple Formula for Effective Preaching”). He ascends into the pulpit as worshiper-in-chief and calls his people to behold their God. He teaches and proclaims as one who has seen something glorious and will not rest until his people see the same. Though he calls his people to see and savor glory, however, he knows that the power is not his. He is entrusted with a humanly impossible task. Who is sufficient for these things?

4. You Are Not Enough

The weightiness of the task, the call of the herald, and the great need of our people are three realities that enter the pulpit with preachers every week. Many more factors, like late Saturday-night preparations, a broken boiler when you arrive at the building Sunday morning, arguments in the car on the way, a weak manuscript, the dangers of a well-done manuscript, fear of others’ responses, a clamor for recognition, and countless more all point to another great reality every preacher feels down to his bones. We are not enough.

We are not sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us (2 Corinthians 3:5). We can bring the most outstanding manuscript into the pulpit, and it has no power in and of itself to meet the need of the preaching hour. If God does not show up and pour out his Spirit on us and our people, we have no resources in ourselves to accomplish the task or goal of preaching.

Preach by Faith

What is a preacher to do under the weight of such realities? Where do we find resources week in and week out to herald? How do we not find ourselves crushed under the weight of our inadequacy?

John Piper is fond of saying, “Books don’t change people, paragraphs do — sometimes sentences.” I would add that acronyms also change people. A.P.T.A.T. is one such acronym, and it has fundamentally altered the way I enter the pulpit.

These five steps have proven to be one of the most cherished preaching practices that assist me in standing behind the sacred desk by faith. It has also proven instrumental as I sit down by faith once the message has been delivered, fully confident that God’s word will accomplish what he intends in the lives of my people. A.P.T.A.T. is a strategy of awareness as it reminds me where my sufficiency is found. It lifts my eyes from the insufficient resources of my own supply to the one who grants me help (Psalm 121:1).

A.P.T.A.T

What is A.P.T.A.T.? In a Look at the Book session entitled “Practical Steps to Walk by Faith,” Piper shares the discipline he has implemented for decades.

A stands for admit (John 15:5). This first letter sets the stage as a strategy of awareness. The preacher acknowledges that he is not sufficient for the task at hand. Who is adequate for the act of preaching? We admit up front that the grace to preach is found in the strength God supplies (1 Peter 4:11).

P, the second letter, stands for pray (Psalm 50:15). Inadequacy is swallowed up in dependent prayer, where humility is furnished with grace (James 4:6).

“Inadequacy is swallowed up in dependent prayer.”

T is trust (2 Chronicles 20:20). Preachers enter the pulpit in many ways. Some come with entire manuscripts, while others come with chicken scratches they call notes. Regardless, what preachers must take into the pulpit every time are precious blood-bought promises. Often, the promise my heart rests upon comes from Isaiah 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The second A, which stands for act, carries me into and out of the pulpit (Philippians 2:12–13). Once the preacher has admitted his need for help and prayed for a supply of grace as he trusts precious promises, he acts by faith.

He speaks as one who speaks the oracles of God (1 Peter 4:11). Once he has done his task, he acts by faith again: he goes and takes his seat. Sitting down by faith, resting in God’s ability to work through weakness, is one of the most challenging actions for the preacher. Monday-morning blues are a regular occurrence as preachers reflect on their perceived performance in the pulpit. Acting by faith in both the preaching moment and the moments afterward is a means of soul-sustaining grace. Grace carries you into the pulpit. Grace sustains you in the pulpit. Grace carries you out of the pulpit to your seat.

The second T points to the thankfulness that is appropriate for God’s faithfulness to supply all needed in preaching (Psalm 106:1). On the other side of admitting, praying, trusting, and acting is abundant thanksgiving for the grace of God. Thankfulness turns Monday-morning blues into Monday-morning blessings, as the preacher reflects on how his need was once again faithfully met to the glory of God.

Audio Transcript

Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Pastor John is back in the studio with me today for a really sharp Bible question on Colossians 3:3. It comes to us from a listener named Josiah. “Pastor John, hello and thank you for taking my question today. How do we reconcile Colossians 3:3, ‘For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,’ with Ephesians 2:1, ‘And you were dead in trespasses and sins’? I know this refers to our spiritual state of existence before and after Christ. I was already dead, and then I died? Is that right? So those who are saved were dead, and then they died again. So dead men die? Is that how salvation works in Paul’s mind?”

That’s a really good question. I love this kind of question. When people read the Bible carefully enough that they think, “How does that fit together?” those are just golden moments in Bible reading to go deeper. So Josiah has put his finger right on a crucial biblical paradox. So Ephesians 2 describes all human beings as dead in trespasses and sins, in need of life. And then Colossians 3 says, “We must die in order to have that life.” That’s a good question.

So the answer is yes. Dead men must die if they are to live. That’s true. That’s the clear teaching of Scripture, and there are two senses in which the dead must die in order to live. So now, if we step back and say, “Whoa, that sounds really confusing” — there are five things that need to be clarified.

First, in what sense are all people dead apart from Christ? Second, in what sense are those dead people alive while they are dead? Because it’s clear those dead people are walking around all around us during the day. Third and fourth, what are the two ways that these dead people must die if they are to live? And then finally, fifth, what is the difference between the life we have after this double death and the life we had while we were dead?

It all sounds very odd, I know, but those are exactly the questions that Scripture leads us to ask.

Dead in What Sense?

So here’s number one. First, in what sense are all people dead — all people, until God makes them alive in Christ? Here’s the way Ephesians 2:1 and 2:3 describe it: “And you were dead in trespasses and sins . . . and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” So, this is not just a few people. Deadness is what characterizes all of mankind, Paul says — all human beings.

“Dead men must die if they are to live.”

And here’s the way John describes our deadness before new birth: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14).

Or here’s the way Jesus talks about it: “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22). And the father in the parable of the prodigal son says, “My son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:24). Or here’s Paul again in 1 Timothy 5:6: “She who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.” So in what sense, then, were we all dead before God made us alive in Christ? Paul has several ways of describing our deadness.

Here’s one in Ephesians 4:18: “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” So, darkness and hardness — can’t see certain reality, can’t feel certain reality.

What couldn’t we see when we were dead? Second Corinthians 4:4 says unbelievers cannot see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” And in this darkness, this blindness and hardness, we don’t have the moral ability to gladly submit to God. Romans 8:7–8 says, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

So what does our original deadness mean? It means hearts hard and blind to the beauty of Christ, and therefore in revolt against the will of Christ.

Alive in What Sense?

Second, in what sense are those dead people — all of us before conversion — alive? Because Ephesians 2:1–3 also says they’re very, very active. Paul says this:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked [you’re walking, dead men walking], following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves [so we’re dead, conducting ourselves] in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

So, we are very active dead people. And Romans 6:17 and 6:20 describes the dead as slaves of sin. There was no faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). We sinned and sinned and sinned. So the dead were very active slaves, but nothing came from faith.

How Do the Dead Need to Die?

Now, here comes this double clarification, third and fourth, I said. There are two senses in which the spiritually dead need to die in order to live. First, they need to be united with Christ so that his death counts as their death.

Romans 6:5: “If we have been united with him in a death like his . . .”
Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ.”
Romans 6:6: “Our old self was crucified with him.”

So this union with Christ in his death happens through faith. When we believe in Christ, God counts his death to be our death. This means that the condemnation owing to our sins falls on Christ. And because of our union with him, we are now counted free from punishment, no condemnation for those united to Christ — that is, “in Christ” (Romans 8:1). So that old, hard, blind, rebellious, dead self is now freed from guilt. Its sins are punished, covered. Now what?

“When we believe in Christ, God counts his death to be our death.”

Here’s the second sense in which the dead must die. Our old self — our old, blind, hard, rebellious nature — is replaced by a defining new nature, a new person. This is what the new birth does. This is a real transformation. Paul describes the ongoing experience of this newness like this: “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9–10).

So, the original dead person passes through two deaths on the way to life. The hard, blind, rebellious, dead self is miraculously, graciously, freely, sovereignly — by God — united to Christ as God creates faith in the heart, so that all the punishment that dead men deserve was endured by Christ. And in that same instant, in that same act of faith, God creates a new nature in us. Which leads now to one last question.

What Distinguishes the Living?

What is the difference between the life of this new nature and the life we had when we were dead? Let’s let Paul answer the question, because he does it so beautifully in Galatians 2:20. There are not many verses more preciously personal in Paul’s writings than Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” And now here comes my answer to the question. What’s the new life that you have after this double death that you walked through? “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

So, the new nature that God created in the new birth is a nature that has faith in the Son of God. It is a nature that believes. It is not hard. It’s tender to the truth and the beauty of Christ. It’s not blind. It sees the supreme worth of Christ. It’s not insubordinate and rebellious. It gladly submits to the lordship of Christ. So yes, Josiah, the dead must die in order to live. And what a glorious work Christ has wrought in his death and resurrection to make that happen.

Some texts mark you for life. As Jacob, you grapple with them, and though you come away with a blessing, you leave with a limp. You think differently. You pray differently. You love, speak, and act differently. Life as it was before can be no more.

Elijah’s question to the wavering people of Israel has been such a text for me. As a young college student, alone in my dorm room with a Bible I had just started reading, I came to it:

How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. (1 Kings 18:21)

When I read it on my futon, it was as though I witnessed the scene unfold firsthand.

“Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” The wicked king addressed the prophet he had hunted like a deer in the forest. He sneered. Not often did the prey beckon the hunter or the fish, the fisherman. But here, weaponless and alone, the prophet emerged from his hiding place to challenge his pursuer, and all of his prophets, to a public showdown.

“I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals,” Elijah replied. “Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:18–19).

Ahab happily complied.

News spread quickly; the people of Israel clamored around to see the spectacle. I took my place among the masses. The excitement was palpable as prophets and their gods prepared for war. Baal’s king and his army of prophets stood in one corner; the Lord’s prophet approached alone, taking his position in the other.

Pierced Without a Weapon

Yet as the prophet advanced toward the mountain to face off with the hundreds of prophets, Elijah’s eyes of fire rested elsewhere. He gazed at us, drew near to us. The contestant walked over to the crowd, slowly looking us over, and lifted his voice for all to hear,

How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. (1 Kings 18:21)

Weaponless, he shot the first arrow. Swordless, he cut me to the heart. Alone, I trembled to hear another speaking.

As I read those words, a lifetime of spiritual indecision flashed before my eyes. It took shape before me. The amphibious creature, offspring of a hearty worldliness and brittle religiosity, reared its head. It bore the horrible beauty of a demon. This angel of light had pleased and soothed my half-waking conscience for a lifetime, while remaining false enough to damn my soul.

This god I followed took no issue with the lukewarmness — the starts and stops, the ins and outs of what I took to be Christian devotion. None of my prophets interrupted me, nor protested when I went my own way. For over a decade, my god was compliant, polite, civil. He did not ask for much, nor threaten me, nor ask me to do anything I did not already agree to. He sat in the corner of the world, just smiling at me, his beloved.

If He Be God

The prophet, however, served another God. A jealous God. One who would not endure the waffling another moment. And this prophet burned with his Master’s fire. Elijah decided that if he was walking headlong into his death, he would leave his half-hearted people with a simple question: How long, O faithless bird, will you go fluttering back and forth between two branches?

We, the people, were the only ones undecided before that mountain. The priests of Baal were decided, even to the point of shedding their blood. They cut themselves with swords to invoke an answer from Baal. King Ahab was also decided. He and his wicked wife Jezebel hunted down Yahweh’s prophets and feasted with Baal’s. Elijah was decided. He stood alone before a spiritual legion of darkness, sure that his God could swallow all these mighty minnows.

“A God, if he be God, must be totally followed. Any true God must be completely obeyed.”

At this, a nearly novel thought pressed against my mind: A God, if he be God, must be totally followed. Any true God must be completely obeyed. He demanded a decision. He must be the most important reality in one’s life. Then the amazing conclusion that I professed for years finally caught up with me: I believed God existed. An eternal being, an infinite Person, a supreme monarch.

Elijah looked me in the eyes and said, If the world or your flesh or you yourself be god — follow them. Eat, drink, for tomorrow you die. But if the God of Scripture is God, then reason, justice, and sanity itself cries aloud: If this Glorious, Mighty, and Beautiful God will have you, you must follow him — unreservedly, unquestionably, unhesitatingly.

How did I answer the prophet?

“And the people did not answer him a word” (1 Kings 18:21). I joined the crowds in solemn silence.

The most daring among us held their tongue. Tough guys didn’t protest. Not a chirp was heard before the mountain; all beaks were stopped. What could we say in our defense?

If Christ Be God

Before the sun beat upon the forsaken and bloodied prophets of Baal, before fire fell from heaven and gave the outmanned Elijah decisive victory, before the people rallied and slew the priests and Elijah ran for his life, the prophet’s question seared me: How long will you go on indecisive?

How many more days and months and years will pass while you still pretend to have made up your mind? “If Christ be God, follow him. If the world, follow it.”

Has Elijah’s question lost its edge? To others not refusing to associate with Jesus, yet simply adding him to a collection of other allegiances: “How long will you go on fluttering between two branches?” Between Christ and the love of money. Between Christ and this world. Between Christ and your favorite sin. Between Christ and your comfortable, uninterrupted life.

How long, professing Christian, will you too live halfhearted, half-bowed? How much longer will you persist with half-waking commitments to Christ? How long will you think to give him the loose change of your attention, the crumbled bills of your affections? “If Jesus is God, follow him; but if your girlfriend be god, your reputation be god, your earthly pleasures and career be god — then follow them.”

“I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). “You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)” (Exodus 34:13–14). One cannot play footsie with the consuming fire for long.

“One cannot play footsie with the consuming fire for long.”

The Christian God is God, and he will not sit idly by within a pantheon of other gods and pleasures. He entertains no rivals. Friendship with the world is adultery and enmity against him (James 4:4). This text, and this reality, God used to shake me awake and bring me to Jesus.

Dear reader, is your Jesus really God? If he is God — and the Jesus of the Bible is God — then follow him. I long for fire to fall again, pleading with Elijah, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back” (1 Kings 18:37).

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15275527/what-kind-of-spiritual-armor-are-shoes

Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Range is home to 58 peaks that reach 14,000 feet above sea level. “Fourteeners,” they’re called. Fifty-seven of those 58 peaks are accessible only by a long and sometimes grueling hike — Long’s Peak, for example, runs 14.5 miles round trip and rises 5,100 feet from trailhead to summit. One of these mountains, however, called Pikes Peak, has a parking lot at the top.

Having topped both Long’s and Pike’s — the one through a desperate, why-did-I-agree-to-this trek, and the other through a comfy car ride (with doughnuts at the top, if memory serves) — I will confirm what you can probably guess: there is a difference between walking to 14,000 feet and driving there.

The view may be the same, with those Rockies running like a river of mountains across the West. But the experience of the view is not. The 14.5 miles and 5,100 feet, it turns out, are not impediments to the beauty, but part of the beauty. You can’t separate the summit from the path, or the final footsteps from the 30,000 that precede them. The difficulty of the way increases the wonder.

A similar principle applies to the spiritual life, including Bible reading.

‘Restless Experientialists’

Many Bible readers can see ourselves in J.I. Packer’s description of “restless experientialists”:

[They value] strong feelings above deep thoughts. They have little taste for solid study, humble self-examination, disciplined meditation, and unspectacular hard work in their callings and their prayers. They conceive the Christian life as one of extraordinary exciting experiences rather than of resolute rational righteousness. (A Quest for Godliness, 30)

In Bible reading as well as mountaineering, many would like the experience of heart-skipping beauty without working their quadriceps to jelly. We often would prefer, say, to drive to the summit of Romans 8 without traversing the rocky fields of reasoning, and climbing the alpine slopes of argumentation, and patiently tracing the winding paths of logic in Romans 1–7. We want the thrill of spiritual feeling without the labor of spiritual thought.

“God has carved only one path to the human heart, and it runs through the mind.”

To be sure, a Christian is nothing without sincere spiritual affections. But God has carved only one path to the human heart, and it runs through the mind.

Bright Minds, Burning Hearts

Passage after passage in the Bible shows this relationship between thought and affections. In fact, the Bible’s very existence suggests it, because here we have a book that unashamedly addresses the brain en route to the heart. But consider just one passage for now.

On the Emmaus Road, when Jesus finally reveals himself to Cleopas and the other disciple, the two men say, “Did not our hearts burn within us?” (Luke 24:32). Every Christian has felt something of the burning heart — the blaze of glory, the flame of joy. And every Christian, on some level, wants more.

Notice, however, how the disciples finish the sentence: “Did not our hearts burn within us as he opened to us the Scriptures?” And by opened, they mean this: “[Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus took the men on an Old Testament tour, interpreting its Christ-centered meaning. In other words, he led an in-depth Bible study with them. Then, and only then, did fire kindle within. Before their hearts burned with love, their minds brightened with truth.

Packer draws the conclusion,

Man was made to know God with his mind, to desire it, once he has come to know it, with his affections, and to cleave to it, once he has felt its attraction, with his will. . . . God accordingly moves us, not by direct action on the affections or will, but by addressing our mind with his word, and so bringing to bear on us the force of truth. (A Quest for Godliness, 195, emphasis added)

“Our affections catch true fire only when our souls are full of truth’s kindling. And the Spirit lights the flame.”

Deep Christian feeling is supernatural, to be sure, but it is not the product of spontaneous spiritual combustion. Rather, our affections catch true fire only when our souls are full of truth’s kindling. And the Spirit lights the flame.

How to Summit Scripture

How then shall we read the Bible? To return to our mountain image, we read the Bible well by hiking rather than driving — by prayerfully thinking our way to affections rather than bypassing the brain. Or, to get more specific, we don’t pass over the hard places, we slow down enough to see, and we resist the comforts of sentimental reading.

Don’t pass over the hard places.

On the Emmaus road, what Scriptures did Jesus open to Cleopas and his friend? Luke writes, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). He took them to Genesis and Isaiah, Leviticus and Kings, Deuteronomy and Psalms, showing how his whole story reveals his whole glory.

We may imagine a book like Leviticus can do little for our hearts; the sand around Sinai seems to offer little spiritual refreshment. And if we come to the Bible looking mainly for a quick emotional kick, we likely will drive right past Leviticus in search of better views. But what if good Bible reading looks less like finding familiar comfort and more like hiking, sometimes through rough terrain, toward a summit whose beauty will thrill us more because of where we’ve walked?

Christian joy becomes more whole the more we read the Bible whole: whole chapters, whole books, whole testaments. Over time, even a book like Leviticus — filled with Christward types and gospel whispers — will lay so many logs on the hearth, ready to be lit by the Spirit.

Slow down enough to see.

As you travel through whole books and testaments, consider also reading slow, at least slow enough to notice details that can’t be enjoyed by car: daffodils along the path, birds’ nests in the branches, unexpected prospects through the trees.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an unexpected sight while walking through familiar territory. “Love your enemies,” Jesus said, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good” (Matthew 5:44–45). Suddenly, that simple word his freshly welcomed me into a God-filled world. The sun is God’s sun, and he raises it, lovingly, like a father turning on the lights in a child’s bedroom. A pronoun changed my day.

God means for pronouns to change us — and conjunctions and prepositions and definite articles. Not that we need to know the names of these parts of speech: a rose without a name still smells just as sweet. We can’t enjoy them, however, without noticing them, and noticing calls for an unhurried pace.

Resist the comforts of sentimental reading.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in a sermon on Hebrews 12:5–11, shares some strong words for those who read Scripture only in what he calls “a sentimental manner”:

There are many people who read the Scriptures in a purely sentimental manner. They are in trouble and they do not know what to do. They say, “I will read a psalm. It is so soothing — ‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.’” They make it a kind of incantation and take the Psalms as another person takes a drug.

The problem with such sentimental Bible reading is that it goes against the grain of Scripture’s own approach to our problems. “The word of God does not merely give us general comfort; what it gives us always is an argument,” Lloyd-Jones writes. And therefore, “We must follow the logic of it, and bring intelligence to the Scriptures. . . . Let them reason it out with you” (Spiritual Depression, 253).

Often, the logic of a passage — its fors and therefores, its ifs and buts — is the trail leading to the summit of glory. “There is therefore now no condemnation” (Romans 8:1); “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6); “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) — all of these are scriptural summits. We can enjoy some of their glory if we drive quickly to the top. But oh, how much better the view if we patiently walk the path.

Patience is, indeed, the virtue many of us may need most in our Bible reading. For the deepest joy, the kind “inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8), comes only to those who prayerfully and thoughtfully plod the path. They read the Bible to know what God says and how he says it — in order that they might then feel that knowledge become worship by the power of the indwelling Spirit.

Resist, then, the urge the drive through your devotions. Glory awaits those who walk.

Some sentences can change your life. One written four hundred years ago changed mine: “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us” (Works of Richard Sibbes, 1:47).

The author was one of the greatest preachers of the Puritan age, Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), and the sentence is found in his greatest book, The Bruised Reed, in which he “scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands,” as Charles Spurgeon put it (Lectures to My Students, 778). That sentence, and that book, ignited in me a passion to spend time every month reading dead pastors, like Sibbes, who point me to the living Christ. The Bruised Reed just might do the same for you.

‘Sweet Dropper’

Sibbes was born in Suffolk, England, in 1577, and grew up in a Christian home. He began his studies at Cambridge at the age of 18. After he was converted to Christ in 1603, he began to faithfully minister the gospel to others. Over the next three decades, those who heard Sibbes preach in Cambridge and London often called him “The Sweet Dropper,” because of his tenderhearted gift of “unfolding and applying the great mysteries of the gospel in a sweet way” (Works, 3:4).

After receiving his doctorate of divinity from Cambridge in 1627, he was often referred to as the “heavenly Doctor Sibbes,” on account of his heavenly minded life and doctrine. A couplet was written about him upon his death on July 6, 1635, at the age of 58: “Of that good man let this high praise be given: Heaven was in him before he was in heaven” (Meet the Puritans, 535).

Sibbes regularly wrote out his sermons, leaving behind over two million words on paper. But The Bruised Reed is far and away his best-remembered and most-treasured book. It’s considered a classic of Puritan devotion, a paradigm of practical divinity. It’s easy to see why.

The book is a Christ-exalting exposition and application of Isaiah 42:3, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” Following Matthew’s lead (Matthew 12:18–20), Sibbes understands this prophetic text about the servant of the Lord, the one in whom God delights, and upon whom the Spirit dwells (Isaiah 42:1), to be fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Over the course of sixteen brief chapters, Sibbes unfolds his argument in three parts: (1) Christ will not break the bruised reed; (2) Christ will not quench the smoking flax (or “burning wick”); (3) Christ will not do either of these things until he has sent forth judgment into victory.

Balm for Weary Believers

Why might Christians today read this book written by a preacher in London nearly four centuries ago?

For this reason: since its initial publication in 1630, countless weary Christians have found The Bruised Reed to be full of encouragement for the downcast and full of strength for the weak — because it is full of Jesus Christ, the merciful and mighty Savior of sinners.

In his book Preaching and Preachers, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “I shall never cease to be grateful to Richard Sibbes who was balm to my soul at a period in my life when I was overworked and badly overtired, and therefore subject in an unusual manner to the onslaughts of the devil. . . . The ‘Heavenly Doctor Sibbes’ was an unfailing remedy. . . . The Bruised Reed quieted, soothed, comforted, encouraged and healed me” (Preaching and Preachers, 186–87).

The seventeenth-century Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, reflecting upon his childhood, said that God used The Bruised Reed to effect his own conversion to Christ. It “opened the love of God to me and gave me a livelier apprehension of the mystery of redemption, and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ” (Richard Sibbes, vii).

Christ, Strong and Tender

According to Sibbes, Christians encounter spiritual trouble by failing to consider “the gracious nature and office of Christ,” which is “the spring of all service to Christ, and comfort from him.” In other words, in The Bruised Reed Sibbes labors to help forgiven sinners behold afresh the “wonderful sweetness of pity and love” found in the merciful heart of Christ (Works, 1:38). “What mercy may we not expect from so gracious a mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), who took our nature upon him that he might be gracious. He is a physician good at all diseases, especially at the binding up of a broken heart” (Works, 1:45).

Sibbes wrote this book for “bruised reeds,” for heartbroken, distressed, and discouraged Christians. He shows from God’s word that Christ will neither break them nor quench them; instead, he cherishes them. Sibbes beckons the hurting and weary Christian to look to Christ for comfort and strength, knowing that since he has finished his work for us, he will most certainly finish his work in us. By looking to Christ, “we see salvation not only strongly wrought, but sweetly dispensed by him” (Works, 1:40).

In the prophecy of Isaiah 42:3, Christ is described as a tender Savior who gently loves and mercifully bears with the failings of the weak. And at the same time, in this text God also promises to provide omnipotent grace in Christ to bring forth victory on behalf of his people (Works, 1:40).

“We are weak, but we are his” (Works, 1:71).

Prayers of the Exhausted

Any careful reader of The Bruised Reed will notice how consistently Sibbes focuses on looking away from oneself to the God of all comfort. God “would have us know that he sets himself in the covenant of grace to triumph in Christ over the greatest evils and enemies we fear . . . and that there are heights, and depths, and breadths of mercy in him above all the depths of our sin and misery” (Works, 1:39).

“Our sins are the sins of men, but Christ’s mercy is the mercy of an infinite God.”

Our sins are the sins of men, but Christ’s mercy is the mercy of an infinite God. The blood of Christ cries louder than the guilt of our sin (Works, 1:89). This gracious heart of Christ is what Sibbes seeks to show to his readers on every page. When we see this merciful and mighty Christ, revealed in the wondrous grace of his gospel, we find strength to serve him for his glory.

But Sibbes is quick to admit that Christians often fail, and become spiritually exhausted. Listen to how he applies the glories of Isaiah 42:3 to the believer who feels weary and heavy laden in the discipline of prayer:

The Spirit helps our infirmities with “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26), which are not hid from God. “My groaning is not hid from thee” (Psalm 38:9). God can make sense out of a confused prayer. . . . God accepts our prayers, though weak, because we are his own children, and they come from his own Spirit, because they are according to his own will, and because they are offered in Christ’s mediation. . . . There is never a holy sigh, never a tear we shed, which is lost. (Works, 1:65–66)

God of Pure Grace

According to Sibbes, Christ is “pure grace clothed with our nature” (Works, 4:519). And because he has committed to “bring forth judgment into victory” in our lives, by his grace we ought to respond by using the means of grace he has made available to us in the local church. “When we draw near to Christ (James 4:8), in his ordinances, he draws near to us.”

“Faith prevails because faith unites the sinner to the Savior of sinners.”

We fight and strive by grace, but Sibbes reminds us that the victory, ultimately, lies not with us, but with Christ, who conquers for us and in us. We strive to be “strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might” alone (Ephesians 6:10). “Christ will not leave us till he has made us like himself, all glorious within and without, and presented us blameless before his Father (Jude 24). What a comfort this is in our conflicts with our unruly hearts, that it shall not always be thus! Let us strive a little while, and we shall be happy forever” (Works, 1:98).

Faith prevails because faith unites the sinner to the Savior of sinners. It is not the strength of our faith that saves; it is weak faith in a strong Christ. “A little thing in the hand of a giant will do great things. A little faith strengthened by Christ will work wonders” (Works, 1:84).

Why read The Bruised Reed? Because you need to be reminded that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in you.

Audio Transcript

Good day, everyone, and welcome to this sermon clip Wednesday on the podcast. As most of you know, for a few weeks we have been looking at a two-part sermon series Pastor John delivered in the spring of 2010. Historically, the sermons are interesting because they come in the days leading up to his eight-month leave of absence, away from the pulpit, to work some things out in his own heart and in his own family. We talked about this leave itself, and the lessons he took from it, on the podcast, particularly in three episodes: APJs 138, 220, and 1227. It was a defining season for him.

Leading up to his leave, we get these two interesting sermons. In them, Pastor John explained what makes him tick. Why does he do ministry the way he does? Remember that? We heard the answer in APJ 1769. And then we looked at a related theme. God makes much of us. He does. He really makes much of his children. But why? Why does God make so much of us? That was APJ 1772. And then we looked at how God makes much of us. In six or seven profound ways, God makes much of his children, and Pastor John walked us through those points last time, last Wednesday, in APJ 1775.

And now we return to that theme first brought up in APJ 1772. There Pastor John said this: God “makes more of you when he makes much of you for his sake than if he were to make much of you only for your sake.” That’s a profound point worth thinking about deeply. But it also raises a question in a lot of minds, because if God makes much of me, if he saves me, because he is doing it to make much of himself, doesn’t that remove some of the luster of his love? That’s the question on the table today. It will be answered in both sermons, the one on April 18 and the other on April 25, both preached in 2010. I’m going to put two brief clips together here in this episode. To begin, here’s Pastor John, near the end of his first message.

Now, last question. The final, decisive question: Why does God, who loves us so much, who makes much of us so extremely, why does he remind us over and over and over again — when he tells us how much he loves us and how much he’s making of us — why does he keep reminding us that he’s doing it for his glory? To ruin it? No.

Why does God remind us over and over that he makes much of us in a way that is designed to make much of him? The answer is that loving you this way is a greater love. God’s love for you, which makes much of you for his glory, is a greater love for you than if he ended by making much of you. If he just made much of you as your greatest treasure rather than him as your greatest treasure, if he did everything he could do to help you feel like a treasure rather than helping you feel like he’s the greatest treasure, he would not love you so much.

Hearts Made for God

I’ll tell you why. The reason this is a greater love is that self, no matter how glorified, cannot satisfy the heart that is made for God. I’ll say it again — bottom-line answer. The reason it’s a greater love to love you for his sake, and a greater love to make much of you that he might be made much of — the reason that’s greater is that a self, no matter how gloriously it looks in the age to come, cannot satisfy a heart that is made for God.

“Self, no matter how glorified, cannot satisfy the heart that is made for God.”

If he is to satisfy the magnificence of the human heart, which is made for him, he must make much of himself for you in making much of you. He will not let your glory, which he himself creates and delights in, replace his glory as your supreme treasure. If he did, he would not love you so much.

So, Bethlehem, I’ll be away in a little over a week, and I want you to feel this. I want you to feel massively loved while I’m gone. I intend to feel massively loved while I’m away. And I would like to know that here, because the Holy Spirit is coming down, there’s a tide rising on how much we are loved as a people. That’s what I would like to know.

You, Bethlehem, are precious to God. And the greatest gift he has for you is not to let your preciousness become your god. I’ll say it again. You, Bethlehem, are precious to God. I don’t know if it would be theologically overstated to say infinitely precious, since he paid Jesus — but let’s just say, immeasurably, unspeakably, gloriously precious to God. And his great gift to you, which brings his love to its apex, is that he will not let your sense of being precious to him become your god. He will be your God forever.

Amen. So that was near the end of sermon one. But the topic carries over. So I’ll fast-forward one week later and pick up this same discussion in the beginning of his next sermon. That’s where we pick up right now.

To Know the Love of Christ

Here’s a prayer from Ephesians. You don’t need to look it up; just listen carefully. This is Paul now, praying for the Ephesians — and the way I pray for you, for myself, for my family: “[I pray that you] may have strength to comprehend . . . the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18–19). You can’t know it without power. Does that strike you as odd? You should give a lot of thought to that. Why can’t I know what it is to be loved without divine power?

I’ll keep reading that prayer. “[I pray that you] may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” — surpasses the powers of the mind to comprehend and the powers of the human heart to experience. It surpasses our fallen capacities to handle with our brain and to experience with our heart. It goes beyond what you’re able to do, which is why Paul is praying — and why I pray for myself this way and for you this way.

May you have strength to comprehend the love of Christ — soul strength, heart strength, mind strength. May God give this to us now. Now, Holy Spirit, come. This is why Paul said in Romans 5:5, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The love of God pours into you, not by any human agency, but by the Holy Spirit. It’s a divine thing to know yourself loved by God. You’re not able to on your own.

Bottom of Our Joy

Now, the question I posed last week was, Why is it that the Bible reveals the love of God for us, including God’s making so much of us, in ways that constantly call attention to his own glory? Why does he do it that way?

And the answer is this: If God didn’t do it that way, if he didn’t love us in a way that constantly called attention back to his glory as the source, as the essence, as the goal, we would be so much more likely to turn the love of God into a subtle means of self-exaltation. We would use his love to make ourselves the deepest foundation of our joy instead of himself. God would become the servant of our slavery to self. We would take our preciousness to God and make that very preciousness to God our god.

“God himself will be the beginning, the middle, and the end in his love for me.”

But, I argued, God loves us so much, we are so precious to him, that he will not let that happen. We are so precious to God that God, in great mercy, will not let our preciousness to him become our god. Hear this carefully: we will indeed, through all eternity, enjoy being made much of by God. That will be a profound ingredient in our joy in God — that he makes so much of his sons and his daughters.

But he will work in us such a holiness, such a sanctification, such a freedom from sin, that he will protect us from making that the bottom of our joy. The bottom of our joy will always be that he’s the kind of God who delights in us. The bottom of our joy will always be that he’s the kind of God who makes much of the likes of me. This grace, this grace, will be the apex of my joy, the apex of my praise forever. It will never terminate here. It will always go back there. “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36). God himself will be the beginning, the middle, and the end in his love for me.

What happens in the heart when it experiences real saving faith? John Piper argues that faith in Christ is not saving unless it includes an “affectional dimension of treasuring Christ.” Nor is God glorified as he ought to be unless he is treasured in being trusted. Saving faith in Jesus Christ welcomes him forever as our supreme and inexhaustible pleasure.

What Is Saving Faith? explains that a Savior who is treasured for his all-satisfying worth is more glorified than a Savior who is only trusted for his all-forgiving competence. In this way, saving faith reaches its God-appointed goal: the perfections of Christ glorified by our being satisfied in him forever.

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2022, Crossway Books

Endorsements

This remarkably insightful book is guaranteed to deepen our understanding of saving faith. It will also cause us to reexamine our approaches to evangelism and assurance of salvation. John Piper explains that to truly ‘receive’ Christ in faith cannot mean merely fleeing to Christ reluctantly as an escape ticket from hell, but must mean welcoming him into our lives as our greatest treasure. Piper is careful not to add any works requirements to justification by faith alone, but he explains more deeply the affections that will characterize genuine saving faith. This is a crucial message for twenty-first-century evangelical Christians.

Wayne Grudem, Professor, Phoenix Seminary

Being a Christian means placing faith in Jesus. What could be simpler? How can ‘saving faith’ require a book to explain? Piper argues from both Scripture and church history that the true answer to this question is elusive, subtle, and glorious and troubling in its implications. He shows why so many believers are absentee in living out the faith they may at one time have expressed. He thereby invites readers to refine and renew their own faith by the grace God gives to receive the riches he offers in Christ. ‘We will spend eternity discovering the wonders of the experience of saving faith,’ Piper states. Read this book and start now.

Robert Yarbrough, Professor, Covenant Theological Seminary

It is a great honor to commend this book to everyone who desires to understand the nature of saving faith. John Piper’s thesis is provocative but does, I think, accurately represent the overall thrust of the New Testament. Reading this thoughtful and life-giving work will prove transformative for many who take the time to ponder its implications.

Andreas Köstenberger, Professor, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary