Audio Transcript

What must I believe to be saved? And what truth, if I deny, will prove that I am unsaved? Theology and personal salvation is a hot topic in the inbox, based on your questions to us over the years. And it’s a broad category too, one that encompasses a lot of related questions, as we will see today.

This time the email comes from a twenty-year-old woman who writes this: “Pastor John, hello! I have been to many funerals in my young life — far too many, actually. The running theme of them all is that the person in the casket was nice and therefore is now in a better place. It’s all very thin cliché. Such a setting confronts me again and again with a massive question. And I think I know the answer intuitively, but I would like for you to put words to this.

“What role do personal theological convictions play in personal salvation? That’s what I never hear in these funerals. A text like Romans 10:9–10 has always come to my mind. What are some others? And how would you suggest a normal person like me, who doesn’t preach or write books, document my own theological heart convictions, the confessions of my mouth, in a way that can be recalled and remembered at my funeral, ‘when this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent’?”

This is a multilayered question. And every one of the layers — I see three, at least — is very important. And here they are (as I hear them) in the order that moves from the least to the most important, even though they’re all important.

Number one, the first layer relates to the kind of things that get said at a funeral that seem so disconnected from what really matters in a person’s life, especially in regard to the theological convictions that a person had.

Number two, another layer is how to live your life in such a way that you document your heart convictions so that they can be recalled at your funeral.

And the third layer of the question (to use her very words) is this: “What role do personal theological convictions play in personal salvation?” Now, that’s really big. So, let me take these one at a time. I think they are moving increasingly important in order.

Live Your Convictions

Two things have to happen if you want the truth to be told about your spiritual life and your heart convictions at your own funeral. One is that you live that life (that’s the most important) and that you hold those convictions. The other is that spiritually discerning people need to speak at your funeral, because, if they’re not spiritually discerning, you know what they’re going to say. “She had a nice sense of humor.” “She made really good desserts.” “She made people really feel at home.”

“There needs to be a heart embrace of Jesus and a life of love that confirms the reality of our faith.”

Now, those are good things. It is good to be remembered for those things. But honestly, when we’re standing on the brink of eternity at a funeral, looking over the edge into heaven and hell, and a person has lived a life of devotion to Jesus and obedience to his word and worship of his glory and advancement of his mission — that person ought to have somebody who is able to articulate what they believed and how they lived it out, delicious desserts and all. All of it.

Active and Verbal

Second, she asks, “How do I live my life in such a way that I document my heart conviction so that they can be recalled at my funeral?” And I think the answer is this: Be active in your obedience to Jesus, and be verbal about your foundational biblical convictions. The Bible teaches both of these: active in your obedience, verbal in articulating what you believe biblically.

Jesus said that we should “let [our] light shine before others, so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16), which is what you’d like people to do at your funeral: give glory to God because of your good deeds (1 Peter 2:12). And in Peter’s first epistle, he said that we Christians have been shown mercy so that we might “proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). So, our lives are supposed to be visible in their good deeds and audible as we declare the truth of our biblical convictions about God, which are the foundation of those visible good deeds.

Lots of people think that all Christians need to do is live a life of good deeds, and that will be sufficient for blessing the world. That’s absolutely not true. It’s not sufficient. Nobody can read a saving message from our good deeds alone. A life of loving good deeds is essential, but it is not sufficient to lead anyone to saving faith in Jesus. There must be a verbal message about the truth of God and Christ and the way of salvation.

Paul said that saving “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). “The word.” “The word” means statements, propositions that carry clear meaning about the reality of God and his work in the world, his work in Christ, and the necessity of faith.

What Must I Believe?

Which brings me now to the third and hardest question. What role do personal theological convictions play in personal salvation? There are two (I think) crucial things to say in answer to that question.

First, there are true statements about God’s saving work that, if a person denies, shows by that denial that they’re not a Christian. The second thing to say is that the Bible teaches that believing that those statements are true in the Bible is not sufficient to show that you are a Christian.

The biblical support for the first statement is 1 John 4:2–3: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” In other words, there are doctrines like the incarnation (Christ come in the flesh) that are essential. If a person denies that the Son of God has become a human, he cannot be a Christian.

The biblical support for the second statement is James 2:26: “Faith apart from works is dead.” Demons have faith in that sense — that things are true; we believe things are true. So, it’s not enough if you want to be saved just to believe that things about God are true. There are some doctrinal statements that are necessary to affirm by a Christian, but that affirmation is not sufficient to prove that saving faith in Jesus is genuine. There needs to be a heart embrace of Jesus and a life of love that confirms the reality of our faith.

In the Hands of God

There’s one other related issue we just might have time to say a word about. People will ask at this point, “How much biblical truth do you need to believe to be a Christian? And how much error can you believe until you’re not a Christian?” Now, I have two responses to those two questions.

First, let’s not focus on minimums, but on maximums. In other words, let’s take as many people into as much biblical truth as we possibly can, rather than dwelling on the question, How little can people believe and still be saved?

And my second response is this: I think only God can answer the question, How much error can you believe until it shows you’re not saved? Now, I’m not contradicting 1 John 4:2–3 when I say that. There are some doctrines so essential that to deny them is not to be a Christian. What I’m saying is that there are hundreds of statements and commands in the Bible — ethical, theological, historical — and they are more or less essential for preserving the saving gospel. How many of those can a person deny until they show that their heart is not right with God, that they’re in rebellion? And I think only God, in the end, can answer that question.

We have to make decisions. Yes, we do. Practically speaking, we all have to make decisions on how we will define doctrinally our church membership, belonging to our organization or ministry. But when it comes to final salvation and the judgment of who’s finally saved and who’s not, after we have taken 1 John 4 into account, I think we better leave to God the call as to how much denial of biblical truth a person can make until it shows that his heart is really in rebellion against God.

Audio Transcript

Amusing Ourselves to Death — that was the great title to a book written by Neil Postman and published in 1985. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Maybe you’ve heard of it or even read it. It was a great title before the digital age. And it’s a great title for the digital age. And I’m borrowing it for this episode, with one change: amusing ourselves from death — today’s theme in a clip from a John Piper sermon preached in the summer of 1996.

Before we get into it, here’s a little context for the sermon, and why eternal realities were especially on the forefront of Pastor John’s mind at the time. Evangelist Billy Graham was in Minneapolis for a five-night rally. By then, Graham was 77 years old. He spoke for a week in the Metrodome, which was just steps away from Bethlehem Baptist Church. It was a huge gathering, well attended, and local reports put attendance for the final evening right around 100,000 people. All of that was happening the same week as this sermon from Pastor John. And that’s why he’ll mention the Dome in a little bit. With that, here’s Pastor John in June of 1996.

Death is sad — and death is terrifying if there’s a holy, just God who’s going to call everybody to account.

If you don’t believe in God — if there is no God, and death is simply the end of a long summer — it’s just sad. It’s sad. And the reason it’s sad is because life as we know it in this world is the basis of everything that makes us happy — family, friends, leisure, food, sex, job, work, meaning. If you don’t have life, you don’t have any of that. And to lose that feels sad, but it doesn’t feel terrifying. It’s not terrifying to fall asleep thinking you never wake up. It’s over — no consciousness ever again. That’s not terrifying. It’s sad to lose things that you know, but it’s not terrifying to go to sleep and never wake up again. Zero consciousness.

But if there’s a holy, just God of truth, who has a law, who has a glory, and we will one day give an account to that God for everything good or evil we’ve ever done, and he will render that to us, then death is terrifying if we’re not right with God.

Silent Slave Master

The existence of God in relationship to death is a terrifying thing. Hebrews 2:14–15 says it’s a slave master if you’re afraid of death. And it says in verse 15 that everybody has been held in bondage all their life long by the fear of death.

I thought about that. A lot of people would deny that. A lot of people who don’t believe in God would say, “We’re not afraid. We are not living a life of bondage. I mean, look at us: Do we look like we’re in bondage? We’re the freest of all people, doing what we want to do. What in the world do you mean that everybody is held in slavery and bondage by the fear of death? What are you talking about? Where’s this verse coming from?”

“Even people who don’t believe in God are subconsciously ruled by the fear of death, one way or the other.”

Here’s what I think it is implying. I think even people who don’t believe in God, and who on the surface are not feeling terrified, are subconsciously ruled by the fear of death, one way or the other. It’s a silent slave master. One of its main forms of slavery is by putting you in the dreamworld of denial. Now, you don’t experience it this way, but the way you can tell if you’re in it or not is by considering what you are willing to think much about. Denial of the death that terrifies manifests itself in all kinds of ways of escaping from having to think long or much about your mortality and about your death.

It’s one thing that Americans will not let themselves think long about, and therefore we surround ourselves with all kinds of distractions and narcotics to escape from what we know we’d be afraid of if we thought about it. And therefore, it is ruling us from underneath.

Cruising Toward Death

I thought of this analogy. It’s like the cruise control on our station wagon. It doesn’t work, but I know what cruise control is for. The fear of death is like a cruise control in the soul that is set roughly at 55 miles an hour of contentment and ease.

Now, if something begins to happen where your life begins to slow down to a pace of pensiveness and reflection and thoughtfulness, and big realities start to come into your consciousness so that you start to ask some big, significant questions, that cruise control is going to bump back up to 55 in a big hurry so that you don’t have to get into thinking about and dealing with those big thoughts that you can have when your life slows down to a restful pace. It’s late at night, it’s quiet, the stars are out, the kids are asleep — and you start to ask the big questions. The fear of death, not even consciously, says, “Quick — turn it on. Turn it on. Get the volume up. Get moving. Start doing something. You can’t deal with that.”

Then it works the other way. Sometimes God, in his common graces — and we’ve all experienced this — moves into your heart and begins to rev up your inquisitive motor, and you start to inquire and think, and it’s a kind of new day. You buy books, and you pursue, and you want to know how to solve mysteries. It’s not the same reflective atmosphere that I was talking about a minute ago. It’s energy, it’s inquiry, it’s pursuit, because you know there’s something vital out there, and at that 65 or 75 miles per hour you might in fact find it. And so, the cruise control takes the foot off the accelerator and brings you back down to the ease and comfort of 55. The TV is just right. The leisure is just right. The family is just right. The work is just right. You don’t need to ask any of those questions or make any of that pursuit.

Our Inner Law

This is what I think the writer here means when he says, “We are being held in bondage, all our life long, by the fear of death” (see Hebrews 2:15). There’s a slavery. Everybody who does not come to terms with reality — with God, with sin, with guilt, with punishment, with death, and with hell — if you don’t come to term with those realities, you must be in denial. You must be living a life governed subconsciously, or perhaps consciously, by the fear of death.

“If you’re not right with God, that law written on your heart is going to make you a slave to the fear of death.”

Some of you know what it’s like to live consciously in horrible anxieties all the time. So whether subconsciously or consciously, this is the case. Romans 2:15 says that the law of God is written on every human heart, your conscience bearing witness with that law, either condemning or affirming.

So I, on the authority of the Bible — the same Bible that Billy Graham holds up, and he seems to get a lot of approval — that same Bible says that everybody in this room, everybody that will go to the Dome tonight or has been there, has the law of God written across your heart, and it is damning you or affirming you, according to whether you are right with God. And if you’re not right with God, that law written there is going to make you a slave to the fear of death.

We all desire stability. Like toddlers learning to walk, however, stability often proves elusive. Unexpected disruptions threaten to knock us off balance. Relational wounds from loved ones introduce insecurity and uncertainty. Changes that we neither sought nor asked for throw us out of routine.

Before we know it, a perfectly good day can crumble beneath our feet, and we feel the disorienting sense of falling out of control. For those who desire stability so much, why do we spend so much of our time experiencing instability? How on earth can we actually maintain — or regain — stability when we find ourselves falling?

The author of Psalm 46 understands the perils of human experience. Breathed out by God, the psalm insists on three realities that plant our feet on firm ground and create an immovable people. Forget any one of these realities, and the foundation of our life soon shudders. We fix our minds on truth to fix our feet on rock.

1. God is all-powerful.

The psalm first fixes our heart upon God’s power. The psalmist obsesses over God’s power, anchoring himself in the overwhelming might of the Almighty. God “makes wars to cease to the end of the earth,” wielding authority over all (verse 9). Twice the psalmist names God as “the Lord of hosts” (verses 7, 11), referring to the endless heavenly warriors who hail God as King. All wars cease at the command of such power. No moment showed this more clearly than when Christ — God in flesh — levied his might to defeat death itself. No opponent triumphs over the will of the unshakable God.

The psalmist reiterates his point in verse 6. In a comparison of powers, he notes that “the nations rage, the kingdoms totter,” but when “[God] utters his voice, the earth melts.” Like the raging nations, the troubles of this life can introduce headaches and heartaches. But a mere utterance from God can unravel the world itself. He speaks things into or out of existence. When our schedule falls apart, God has the power to piece it back together. When we grieve a fresh glimpse of our own sin, God’s power stands sufficient for us. Even if the earth threatens to give way, God can speak it into standing its ground — and it must obey.

When life fractures, we often forget this power. We neglect the One who wields all strength and authority, and who can change or destroy the very fabric of creation. The last time you fell into upheaval, did you meditate more on God’s power or on the upended chunks of your life? What played on loop in the theater of your mind? With the psalmist, we can form the habit of obsessing over the power of our God. We can interrupt our anxious thoughts with greater thoughts of our great God.

2. God is very present.

Cascading from this first reality, immovable people also meditate on the presence of God. God is capable of rescuing me from the cliffs of life, but is he here with me?

Verse 1 emphatically points to God as “very present.” Merely “present” does not capture the nearness of God. He is very present. God does not stand at the top of the cliff you dangle from, offering a hand if you can reach to him. He effortlessly clambers down the sheer rock to come to your side. As verse 5 says, God “is in the midst of” us — right in the middle of our instability and chaos.

“No opponent triumphs over the will of the unshakable God.”

Such nearness asserts itself in the repetition of the fact that the Lord of hosts is “with us” (verses 7, 11). The Hebrew underlying this phrase is where the name Immanuel comes from — meaning “the with-us God.” God took on flesh in order to dwell “with us,” and nothing will keep him from being at our side. God remains near enough to feel every breath he gives and hear every heartbeat he sustains. Even when we falter, God remains very present.

When we feel abandoned by the failures of those we trust, what thoughts fill our minds? Do we meditate on the nearness of God? Can we habituate ourselves to stop focusing on the tumbling circumstances around us and instead lean on the Almighty One who stands “with us” in them all?

3. God is your protector.

If we give thought to these two realities, though, we may see the problem of an all-powerful, ever-present God remaining in direct contact with such sinful people as ourselves. We are painfully aware that we are stained with sin. He radiates holiness. What if his power works not for us but against us? The answer to this question reveals the third meditation of immovable people.

The psalmist reveals that, for God’s people, his power is unspeakably bent toward giving aid. Rather than presenting himself as the harbinger of punishment, God has made all necessary preparations to serve as our “fortress” (verses 7, 11). For those who dwell in the “city of God,” the psalmist promises that “God will help her when morning dawns” (verse 4). God does not destroy or smite his people when morning dawns. Rather, he helps them.

God’s aid comes quickly to those who belong to him. Faster than next-day shipping, God brings rescue. This help may entail sustaining your strength to hold on longer in your grief, or it may look like the repentance of the one who wounded you. He may change your circumstances dramatically, or he may give you the courage to keep enduring them. Either way, the God of all power who abides with you has devoted himself to your aid in all things.

Christ Our Rock

Christ revealed God’s saving heart when he rescued us from our greatest enemy. Through his death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection, Christ disarmed Satan of his only damning weapon — unforgiven sin. In the avalanche of implications of Christ’s work, the requirement of punishment and death attached to our sins perished as well.

When dangling from the cliffs of life, we may not fear the fall as much as we fear what comes at the end of the fall. Christ took away that deepest fear by eliminating sin’s power to kill us and keep us from God. That relational wound will not ultimately overwhelm you. The fearful what if scenarios will not steal your sanity. He will faithfully protect you, just as he always has.

The next time you find yourself losing your footing in life, meditate on these realities. In fact, meditate on them every day of your life. Let these realities mark you, holding your attention and shaping your outlook on life. In Christ, your God holds all power. Your God is with you right now. Your God is helping you and has promised to uphold you. The circumstances of life may harass and threaten, but they cannot undo you. Earthquakes come and go, but Christ’s people remain. The city of God never moves, nor do her inhabitants.