Godward Toil

The purest words ever spoken from a pulpit

The first 17 minutes of this sermon by John Piper put a stake in the ground for my life.  Pastor John recites scripture from the heart the way I want to, and want my children to.  Paul said to the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."   So I am within God's plan for the body of Christ when I desire to imitate this precious brother's Word-soaked life.   These 17 minutes are my vision of biblical productivity.  These words are tools for Godward toil.   If you do nothing else on the Internet this week, watch or listen to (don't just read) this sermon about Scripture memory.

Link to Piper Health Wealth Prosperity Message .mp3

Here is the .mp3 of the full Piper sermon excerpted in the video posted earlier today.   

[Via comment on Between Two Worlds by Tony Byrne, pointing to comment by Rae at Purgatorio]

Getting things done with prayer

In a recent sermon on prayer, John Piper made the following staggering assertion:

...God has ordained to make our prayers real causes of real events. Real causes. The words of James 4:2, “You do not have because you do not ask,” do not mean, “You would have had anyway, even if you didn’t pray, since God had a plan and your prayers don’t matter.” “You do not have because you do not ask” means prayer causes things to happen that do not happen if the prayers don’t happen. This is breathtaking. And if you neglect this privilege—your participation in God’s moving the world—you are acting very foolishly. We pray because it is a staggeringly awesome privilege.

I nearly gasped when I heard this.  And it has changed my prayer life.   Why?

Anyone who knows John Piper's mission and theology knows that no one on Earth has a higher view God's sovereignty and supremacy.  In the very paragraph before the one I quoted above, he says,  "God runs this world with infinite wisdom. You and I never inform him of anything he doesn’t already know. We never add to his wisdom about what he should do next."    So when I heard him say "prayer causes things to happen that do not happen if the prayers don’t happen," I knew that  He was not taking about an open theism position in which God lacks foreknowledge and therefore is ever improving and responding.

That meant that I really needed to come to terms with this radical statement.  Does he really mean "cause"?   Do my prayers matter in a "cause" kind of way?   I knew that I hadn't been praying like that.   I asked God to show me truth, to enlighten and enlarge my mind so that I might possibly hold onto such a potentially glorious paradox long enough to examine it and let it touch me.    With that prayer, I went to the Scripture and found just what John Piper found:   We have an inscrutable God who knows and causes all things, and who has taken pleasure in causing prayer to cause things to happen in the universe.   This reality is so profound, that I can barely begin to think about before I exhaust my mental capacity.

Yet, marvelously and inexplicably, my soul can respond to it.  When I was first born of God, I prayed this way.  And I have begun to pray this way again.  Early this week, while I was reading the Bible in the morning, I felt overwhelmed by all of the tasks and responsibilities I had this week.  I could not see how I could possibly do everything that I had to do.  Next actions and projects identified, but not nearly enough time to fit them in.  In my prayer journal, I asked God to help me.   And I asked with the fervency that came from the meditations on prayer that had been sparked by the Piper sermon.   Later that day, one of the huge things I had to do was completed and taken away in 30 minutes.   When it happened, I knew with certainty (with as much unprovable certainty as I know I love my children) that my prayer had caused that to happen.  I thanked and praised Him.   An unbelievable interaction had taken place with the One who holds the universe in His hands.  I participated in God moving the world.  He caused my circumstances (the work I had, the sermon, everything), moved my heart to pray,  heard the prayer, and made it happen.   He ordered all of this such that my prayer was the only way it would happen--and/because it is the way He gets the most glory.

Prayer:  a trusted system for getting things done.

The Pastor Is Giving Homework

In September, our church began a sermon series about progressive sanctification called Renovate. The pastor of our church, Steve Matson, is a strong leader and a challenging preacher. This series has been excellent so far—calling people to do the hard, Spirit-led work of real change. (.mp3 files of the sermons are available on the church website).

As part of the series, the pastor is assigning written homework. Each week the bulletin comes with a blue sheet of paper with some scripture for the service, and three or four homework questions. The paper has three holes punched in it, which are there to encourage us to put them in the blue folders the pastor makes available in the foyer after the service.

The homework has really good stuff on it. And I see people in the congregation responding to it. However, from the standpoint of my desire to equip myself and other Christians to do kingdom work, I worry that many people don’t have systems in place to keep track of a handout like this, much less for seeing the homework to completion. I think the blue 3-holed folders are there in the foyer to help people with this level of organization, but I wonder if that’s enough. Where people are putting these folders when they get home? Are any of them ending up on a pile of mail and other miscellaneous pieces of paper? Is the homework on a to-do list? If so, will that list lead to action before next Sunday?

I’d have to ask around, but my suspicion is that many people do not have systems for managing in-flow coming from church--whether it’s a verbal suggestion from the pulpit, a prompting of the Spirit in response to the Word,  or more formal homework like Pastor Steve has been assigning. How many times have you heard a pastor make a wise exhortation that you plan to follow, but don’t? (“Just one time this week, try to….” “Next time you’re with your teenage son, ask him….”)  I think what happens is this:

• People feel and sense the wisdom of the exhortation.
• The Spirit convicts them that it is the right thing to do.
• They agree in their hearts they’re going to act.
• The service ends, other inputs continue, the plan languishes.

These failed plans are not just unfortunate, they are dangerous:  "If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin." (Duet 23:21)

Sometimes our plans fail because we don't have a true heart to act. However, often it’s because we’re just not equipped to keep track of things! That doesn’t take our hearts out of the equation, of course, but rather stands as a call for greater diligence and planning.   If we fail to pursue such diligence it is very much a heart issue--in a sense we neglect our great salvation (Heb 2).  Likewise, the church and its leadership fails the body if it does not “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph 4:11-12).

I am eager to think more about how to better equip myself and my brothers and sisters in this way. What would it take to have a church full of people who knew exactly how to handle a homework sheet offered by their beloved Pastor—how to get the paper home, store it in a place they’d easily find it, have a plan to complete it, work on it diligently, and have it ready to bring to church the following Sunday? What would it mean to our Pastor to see 300 people walk in the door with the previous week’s little blue sheet all scribbled on and ready to share with others?! Talk about encouraging! 

Godward Toil in Piper Sermon

I listened to a 2005 sermon by John Piper this morning, "Boiling for Christ."  The sermon is an exposition of  Romans 12:11  "Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord."   The primary exhortation in the message is to serve passionately ("feel!") and productively ("get it done!"), receiving the passion, strength, effectiveness, and service from Christ.   The whole sermon is glorious and I can't do it justice.  But the last 7 minutes or so (33:00-40:47 if you want to download and listen) particularly caught my attention because Piper brought together three verses that I had not previously enjoyed as a trio proclaiming that productivity for God is productivity from God:

• Romans 15:18, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me
• Colossians 1:28-29:  “[Christ] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
• 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

We work hard.  We must toil.   And even as we toil, it is Christ who is accomplishing.  How strange and marvelous to be God's conduit.   May the knowledge that it is not me working, spur me to work even harder!