What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

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

Our tired, sinful world has never seen a surprise so momentous as the one that spread from the tomb on Easter Sunday. “The dead stayed dead in the first century with the same monotonous regularity as they do [today],” Donald Macleod writes (The Person of Christ, 111). No one, in any age, has been accustomed to resurrection.

To the disciples, it mattered little that their Lord had already given away the ending (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). The resurrection of Jesus Christ — heart beating, lungs pumping, brain firing, legs walking — could be nothing less than a surprise. The greatest surprise our world has ever seen.

Pay attention to the resurrection narratives, however, and you may find yourself surprised at how Jesus surprises his people. He does not run from the tomb shouting, “I’m risen!” (as we may have expected). In three separate stories, in fact — with Mary, with Peter, and with the two disciples on the Emmaus road — he does not reveal himself immediately. He waits. He lingers. He hides, even. And then, in profoundly personal ways, he surprises.

Some of us woke up this Easter in desperate need of this same Jesus to offer a similar surprise. We declare today that he is risen, that he is risen indeed. But for one reason or another, we may find ourselves stuck in the shadows of Saturday. Perhaps some sorrow runs deep. Or some old guilt gnaws. Or some confusion has invaded the soul. Perhaps our Lord, though risen, seems hidden.

Sit for a moment in these three stories, and consider how the Lord of the empty tomb still loves to surprise his people. As on the first Easter, he still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.

Sorrow Surprised by Joy

Maybe, this Sunday, some long sadness seems unmoved by the empty tomb. Maybe the Easter sun seems to have stopped just below the horizon of some darkened part of life — some love lost, some long and aching wait. Maybe you remember Jesus’s words, “Your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20), but you still feel the sorrow, still look for the joy.

Stand at the tomb with Mary Magdalene. Others have come and gone, but she waits, weeping (John 20:11). She has seen the stone rolled away, the absent grave, and the angelic entourage of her risen Lord — and now, Jesus himself stands near her. But though she sees him, she doesn’t see him. “She did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She mourns before the Lord of holy joy, not knowing how soon her sorrow will flee. And for a few moments more, Jesus waits.

He draws her out with a question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15). She offers her reply, supposing she speaks to a gardener. And then, in a moment, with a word, the mask comes off. Shadows break, sun rises, sorrow makes its sudden happy turn. How? “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (John 20:16). One word, one name, and this Gardener blooms flowers from her fallen tears. “Rabboni!” she cries — and cries no more (John 20:16).

Unlike Mary, you know your Lord is risen. Even still, for now, you may feel bent and broken. Seeing Jesus, but not seeing him. Knowing he lives, but not knowing where he is. Maybe even hearing his voice, but supposing you hear another’s. Dear saint, the risen Christ does not stand idly by while his loved ones grieve. He may linger for the moment, but he lingers near enough to see your tears and hear your cries — near enough to speak your name and surprise your sorrow with joy.

Keep waiting, and he will speak — sooner or later, here or in heaven. And until then, he is not far. Even if hidden, he is risen, and the deepest sorrow waits to hear his word.

Guilt Surprised by Forgiveness

Or maybe, for you, sorrow is only a note in a different, darker song. You have sinned — and not in a small way. The words of your mouth have shocked you; the work of your hands has undone you. You feel as if you had carried the soldiers’ nails. And now it seems that not even Easter can heal you.

Sit in the boat with Peter. He knows his Lord is risen — and indeed, he has even heard hope from Jesus himself. “Peace be with you,” the Master had told his disciples (John 20:19). But that “you” was plural. Peter needed something more, something personal, to wash away Good Friday’s stains.

“Jesus still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.”

And so Jesus stands on the shore — risen, hidden, and again with a question: “Children, do you have any fish?” (John 21:5). These are words to awaken memory (Luke 5:1–4), “yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). No, not yet. He will allow Peter to feel the night’s empty nets a few moments longer, and then the surprise will come. And so he reveals himself, this time not with a name but with fish — many fish, actually (John 21:6). Then, after feeding his men, he leads Peter in personal repentance and, as if all is forgotten, calls him afresh: “Follow me” (John 21:19).

That Jesus should turn our sorrow into joy is one of Easter’s greatest wonders. But perhaps greater still is that he should turn our guilt into innocence — that he should address our most sinful, shameful moments so personally, that he should wash our souls as humbly and tenderly as he washed his disciples’ feet. Yet so he does.

The process can take some time, however. We may not feel his forgiveness immediately, and he does not always mean us to. He sometimes hides for some moments or some days. Yet as he does, he prepares the scene for a surprise so good we too may feel like leaping into the sea (John 21:7). Our Lord is here, bringing grace and mercy; we must go to him.

Confusion Surprised by Clarity

Or maybe you find neither sorrow nor sin afflicting you this Easter, but rather another kind of thorn, a pain that can pierce deep enough to drive you mad: confusion. Life doesn’t make sense. Logic fails. God’s ways seem not just mysterious but labyrinth-like. Who can untangle these knots or find a way through this maze?

Walk with the two disciples toward Emmaus. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” you hear them say (Luke 24:21). Yes, had hoped. No more. Three nails and a spear stole the breath from that dream. Now all that’s left is confusion, a body and blood and a burial of all that seemed good and right and true. If not Jesus, then who? Then how? We had thought he was the one.

But then “the one” himself “drew near and went with them” (Luke 24:15). Again he asks a question: “What is this conversation that you are holding?” (Luke 24:17). And again he conceals himself: “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). So they walk; so they talk; so they spill their confusion all along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yes, they have heard his body was gone, have heard even a report of his rising (Luke 24:23–24). But still, they just can’t make sense of it all.

But oh, how Jesus can. So, with a swift and tender rebuke, a lesson in the Scriptures, and a face revealed over broken bread, he picks up their shattered thoughts and arranges them in a vision of startling, stunning clarity. Then “he vanished” (Luke 24:31), taking all their confusion with him. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” they ask each other (Luke 24:32). Christ had risen, and the clarity they could not imagine had walked with them, talked with them, and loved them into the light.

Our hearts today may brim with questions, some that seem unanswerable. But the resurrected Jesus knows no unanswerable questions. He can solve every riddle in every corner of every human heart — even if, for the moment, he walks beside us incognito.

Our Final Surprise

We live today in an in-between land. Jesus is risen, but we don’t yet see him. Jesus lives, but we haven’t yet touched the mark of the nails in his hands. If we are his, however, then one day we will. And these stories give us reason to expect on that day a final, climactic surprise.

If hearing Jesus’s word by faith can lift the heaviest heart, what sorrow can withstand his audible voice and the new name he will give to us (Revelation 2:17)? If even now we taste the relief of sins forgiven and condemnation gone, what will happen when he puts a white robe around our shoulders and renders sin impossible? And if we have moments here of bright clarity, then what will come when the mists lift altogether, when Truth himself stands before us, and when all deception disappears like a bad dream?

Then we will see what a risen Christ can do. His dealings with Mary, with Peter, with the Emmaus disciples — these are but the fringes of his power, the outskirts of his ways. So keep waiting, dear Christian. At the right time, he will speak your name. He will appear on the shoreline of your long-repeated prayers. He will walk with you on the road of confusion and loss until you reach a better table, and in the breaking of the bread you will see his face.