God is the Gospel- John Piper

So last night at Refuge, my Tuesday night bible study, I heard John Piper speak via video from his 2008 sermon at the Resolved Conference. I have read a couple of his books and liked his writings but have never heard him speak and was honestly, quite blown away. He is an older man yet he speaks and writes like he is in his late-20s, with such passsion and conviction. Below are my thoughts, as well as his, on the subjects he talked about. He basically turned my entire view on what the Gospel is and how it is changing my life.

His sermon was turtned towards relating "God is the Gospel" and things that have happened in my life. Whether iot was the glory of God, His love for me, my conversion, how I have heard the gospel preached before, me being the salt and light of the Earth, and of course evangelizing. All these were packed into an hour sermon, and it couldn't have been any better, at least for me. He gan the sermon talking about why we sin, and what the actual reason for sin was. He said a quoote that I will never forget. Actually it was said as he was beiong introduced, taken from one of his books. It said, "Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God". This really got me thinking and kind o opened my mind for what was to come. John Piper got on stage and you could actually see the transformation from when God had taken over the sermona dn used John as a vessel for His message rather then John using God. He made it very clear right away that there is no gospel without God. Whatever else happened in the gospel does not matter without God. Simply put, yet very convicting. How many times have we focused on other things then God while reading the gospels?

The first point that Piper makes in his lesson, is how God is the Gospel relates to the Glory of God. God is most glorifed when we are satisfied with Him. This is teh most important thing to remember. We can do every good deed in the world, and unless we are satisfied with what God is doing in our life, God will not be as glorifed as he could be. Piper also touched on the idea of making Christ look great thoguh death. Something that I think a lot of Christans and non-belivers struggle with. But we have to show the gain we get through death, this will make Christ look amazed and glorified. After the loss of everything, we still proclaim His name to the heavens and are able to go home to our Heavenly Father. It is hard to see the gaion through the loss of a loved one, but honestly, if they are believer, they are gaining the greatest reward of all.

The second point he made was the relationship between God is the Gospel and His love for us. I always knew that God loves us, but what John said had totally changed my thoughts on it. Yes, he loves us, but can see the much bigger picture. In John 11:1-6, it details the story of Lazuraus, who loved Christ and Christ loved him. However, when Jesus found out that Lazuraus was sick and would die, he did nothing. "Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days." (John 11:4-6) He knew that saving Lazuraus is not the true love that he had planned, but letting him die, would let him go home to God, and truly be at peace. This basically answers the question of how do you make God look good through death? Basically, the "loving human" is exhalting God for their enjoyment. That they love the worship and praise that go towards Christ and no one else. It is not abolut him making a lot of us but because of Christ's sacrifice, God being able to enable us to make much of Him forever.

Piper went on to talk about how God is the Gospel relates to our Conversion. I honestly can not say it better or try to explain it better than Piper did on his notes, so for this one I will just write what he wrote. He said, "The highest, best, final, decisive GOOD that makes the Gospel good news is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed for your everlasting ENJOYMENT." He also added a bible verse to correlate with his thoughts. The verse was 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 and the bets part of that passage is verse six. It says, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,'made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6) Through our conversion, He ahs given us a "light to shine out the darkness". I do not know about you, but that is pretty amazing to know Christ gave that to me when He took control of my life.

Piper continued to talk about how this all relates to how the gospel is usually preached. what reall y struck me abotu this section is that he did not focus on the forgiveness aspect of accepting Chrisdt, as we usually do. But what the reason for forgiveness from Christ was. He said it was not for escaping Hell or feeling better about your self, but for bringing you home to God. Wthout forgiveness you will not be able to go Home and be with God, so this should be the sole purpose why you should want to be forgiven. This is the only value that forgiveness has. PERIOD!

Next, Piper touched on one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, Matthew 5. This talks about us, as Christians, being the salt of the Earth as well as the light. Being "salty" (as Piper said) means "that we we are so satisfied in our reward in heaven, God, that we joyfully endure PAIN in the service of Jesus." (John Piper) Endure Pain? Yeah I thought the same thing...but honestly when you think about it. This is not our life to be selfish with. Christ is, or should be, ultimately inc opntrol of everything that goes on, including teh painw e endure. Just look at Lot in the Old Testament. He endured more pain and suffering then we could ever imagine, yet he was still praising God's name thorough it all and thanking God for everything. Also, John touched on the subject of the "Prosperity Gospel", basically always going for the financial means rather than the righteous ones. Piper made a good point that the "World" will simply not be impressed by a church that is motivated by worldy things. We have to seperate ourselves from them and show the "world" that we rely on other means of proseperity, we rely on Christ.

The last section he spoke about was God is the Gospel relating to evangelism and missions. I have read a book by Piper called "Let The Nation's Be Glad" for a class in college. It changed my perspective on the mission field and what we are called to do rather than what we want to do. He said in his sermon, like he did in his book, about "find[ing] a way to talk to your friends about God being the gospel in teh thinges that THEY long for and yearn for." (John Piper)

Through this entire sermon, I though about how I was looking at the gospel and how John Piper slowly but surely changed my perspective of it. I hope you enjoyed what Piper had to say as much as I did and look forward to more I get to hear from this extraordinary man of God.