God is the Gospel Review - Pt 5

The conclusion contains some fantastic hymns with great lyrics that point to this truth that God is the Gospel. I will put a bow on this week of posts by quoting three of those hymns:

Be Thou My Vision
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Fairest Lord Jesus
Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son,
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast.

All fairest beauty, heavenly and earthly,
Wondrously, Jesus, is found in Thee;
None can be nearer, fairer or dearer,
Than Thou, my Savior, art to me.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forever more be Thine.

I Will Glory in My Redeemer
I will glory in my Redeemer
Whose priceless blood has ransomed me
Mine was the sin that drove the bitter nails
And hung Him on that judgment tree

I will glory in my Redeemer
Who crushed the power of sin and death
My only Savior before the holy Judge
The Lamb Who is my righteousness
The Lamb Who is my righteousness

I will glory in my Redeemer
My life He bought, my love He owns
I have no longings for another
I’m satisfied in Him alone

I will glory in my Redeemer
His faithfulness my standing place
Though foes are mighty and rush upon me
My feet are firm, held by His grace
My feet are firm, held by His grace

I will glory in my Redeemer
Who carries me on eagles’ wings
He crowns my life with loving-kindness
His triumph song I’ll ever sing

I will glory in my Redeemer
Who waits for me at gates of gold
And when He calls me it will be paradise
His face forever to behold
His face forever to behold

God is the Gospel Review - Pt 4

Piper begins Chapter 11 with these words:

The best news of the Christian gospel is that the supremely glorious Creator of the universe has acted in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection to remove every obstacle between us and himself so that we may find everlasting joy in seeing and savoring his infinite beauty. The saving love of God is his doing whatever must be done, at great cost to himself, and for the least deserving, so that he might enthrall them with what will make them supremely happy forever, namely himself. Therefore, the gospel of God and the love of God are expressed finally and fully in God’s gift of himself for our everlasting pleasure. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps 16:11)

In typical Piper fashion, he shocks us awake one last time with this cutting paragraph, which will be my final quote. If this doesn’t completely turn you off to the book, perhaps it will cause you to read it to see where he goes with this:

The God-centered love of God is foreign to fallen human beings, especially those hwo, like most of us, have been saturated for decades with doctrines of self-esteem. We have absorbed a definition of love that makes us the center. That is, we feel loved when someone makes much of us. Thus, the natural, human definition of love is making much of someone. The main reason this feels like love is that it feels so good to be made much of. The problem is that this feels good on wholly natural grounds. There is nothing spiritual about it. No change in us is needed at all to experience this kind of “love.” This love is wholly natural. It operates on the principles that are already present in our fallen, sinful, and spiritually dead souls. We love the praise of man. It feels good. Praise is to the ego what sex is to the body. It just doesn’t get any better—as long as we are spiritually dead.

The ground of natural love is finally me, not God. If you make much of me, I feel loved, because I am the final ground of my happiness. God is not in that place. He should be, but he is not. That is what it means to be unconverted and natural. The deepest foundation of my happiness is me (p 149)

Piper then goes on to talk about how unconverted people can ‘get religion’. There are plenty of churches that nurture this type of self-love, and even those that preach the truth twist the message in their heads to hear what they want to hear.

So it is possible even to see God as “in a sort, lovely” when we are not even genuine Christians. If he can be seen as a servant of our self-love, then we can see him as lovely. If he will make much of us, then we will be willing, up to a point, to make much of him. … The issue is: Where does the foundation of our joy lie? I s it ourselves or is it God? (p 150-151)

God is the Gospel Review - Pt 3

This entire section was such a blessing and I found it very difficult to ‘pull out’ a quote because the entire section is quote-worthy.

The creation of the material world, including our bodies with all five senses, was God’s idea. He did not do it mainly as a temptation to idolatry, but mainly as a display of his glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). That is the purpose of a million species of animals and plants, and a million galaxies. “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4). Yes, if the thanksgiving is rooted in the sight of the glory of the Giver who is more to be admired than all his gifts, and supremely to be enjoyed in all his gifts (p 138).

It was also very special because by God’s providence, our family rented the Disney DVD Earth during the week I read this section, and as we watched this documentary (secular yet strangely missing all of the ‘millions of years ago’ allusions to evolution), we were enraptured by the majestic and spectacular images of God’s handiwork in creation. We were truly glorying in Christ for giving us such a planet to enjoy!

All the enticements to God that are not God are precious and precarious. They can lead us to God or lure us to themselves. They may be food or marriage or church or miracles. All of these blessings bring love letters from God. But unless we stress continually that God himself is the gospel, people will fall in love with the mailman—whether his name is forgiveness of sins or eternal life or heaven or ministry or miracles or family or food (p 143).

Piper then exposits Habakkuk 3:17-18 and Psalm 63:1-3 and Psalm 73:24-26 to illustrate this God-centered focus. He includes my favorite Augustine quote, “He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee which he loves not for Thy sake (p 144)”. Finally, he brings in Jesus and Paul.

Jesus put it like this: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Jesus must be the supreme treasure of our lives, if we are true disciples of Jesus. Jesus died for us and rose again to make it possible for us to see him and savor him above all things with everlasting joy. This is the great good the gospel is meant to accomplish.

Therefore those who are permeated most deeply by the gospel speak like the apostle Paul: “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:7-8).

Piper ends the section with an amazing Jonathan Edwards quote (imagine Piper quoting Edwards?!?):

The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is the wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honor and glory. They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they ar to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the ‘river of water of life’ that runs, and the tree of life that grows, ‘in the midst of the paradise of God’. The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another: but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them (p 145).

God is the Gospel Review - Pt 2

As we continue to look at Piper’s God is the Gospel, here is a quote from Chapter 3. Has anyone ever asked you if you would be happy in Heaven if Christ was not there? It is a good question.

Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It’s a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don’t want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel. (p 47)

If we are not captured by [God’s] personality and character, displayed in his saving work, then all our declarations of thanksgiving are like the gratitude of a wife to a husband for the money she gets from him to use in her affair with another man. … Perhaps you have heard people say how thankful we should be for the death of Christ because it shows how much value God puts on us. In other words, they are thankful for the cross as an echo of our worth. What is the foundation for this gratitude?

Jonathan Edwards calls it the gratitude of hypocrites. Why? Because “they first rejoice, and are elevated with the fact that they are made much of by God; and then on that ground [God] seems in a sort, lovely to them … They are pleased in the highest degree, in hearing how much God and Christ make of them. So that their joy is rally a joy in themselves, and not in God.” It is a shocking thing to learn that one of today’s most common descriptions of the cross—namely, how much of our value it celebrates—may well be a description of natural self-love with no spiritual value. (p. 137)

God is the Gospel Review - Pt 1

I picked up God is the Gospel for a couple of reasons. First, I was preparing for a formal opportunity to share the Gospel so I wanted to be clear on the message. I also want to internalize the truth of the Gospel so that I can communicate it going forward.

So grabbing Piper’s book, I quickly read the first chapter and was eager to dive into chapter two which looked as though it would provide a definition of what the Gospel was exactly. Here are the elements of the Gospel spelled out in this chapter.

• There is a living God (Acts 14:15)
• He Sovereignly reigns (i.e. ‘Your God reigns’ in Isa 52:7, Mark 1:14)
• The King of the Universe (the Lord), the Messiah (Christ), has come to be a Savior (Acts 8:12, Luke 2:10-11, Rom 1:1-3)
• Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (Mark 10:45, Jer 31:34, 1 Cor 15:1-3).
• Jesus is Risen from the dead (2 Tim 2:8, 1 Cor 15:17)
• The Gospel includes the promise of the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:16, 18; John 14:17-18).
• The Gospel includes the promise of Salvation (Eph 1:13, Rom 1:16).
• It includes the kind blessings that were purchased by the cross (Matt 4:23, Luke 4:18) partially now and completely in the age to come.
• It includes peace with God (Rom 5:10; 2 Cor 5:18), and each other (Eph 2:14-18)
• Eternal life (2 Tim 2:10)
• Blessings of all nations (Gal 3:8,16; Eph 3:6)
• The Gospel is good news of grace not human merit (Acts 20:24; Rom 11:5-6; Eph 1:4,6)
• Jesus’ death makes God just in providing this grace (2 Cor 8:9, Heb 2:9, Rom 3:25-26)
• Every blessing to redeemed believers flows to us by that grace (Rom 8:32)

Piper then explains the point of the book, namely that none of these elements define the Gospel completely, not even when you take them altogether. So what is the essence of the Gospel? Let us peak ahead to the last chapter:

The point of this book is that the Christian gospel is not merely that Jesus died and rose again; and not merely that these events appease God’s wrath, forgive sin, and justify sinners; and not merely that this redemption gets us out of hell and into heaven; but that they bring us to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ as our supreme, all-satisfying, and everlasting treasure. “Christ … suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18).

Now if that seems a little deep, or hard to comprehend, good. Read the book and be taught by this gifted teacher. I came away with a deeper passion for Christ and a better understanding of the Gospel.

This week I seek to entice you to pick up Piper’s book by giving some of the juiciest quotes each day. Enjoy!