John PiperThis was also my first time to hear John Piper preach, in person.  I have listened to, read, and deeply admired John Piper for many years now.  Needless to say, to see him in person was a personal highlight. 

However, I must say that to hear him unload, for lack of a better description, on the topic of expositional preaching as glorifying to God challenged me beyond any description that I currently have.  I am still chewing on my notes from this session. 

If someone asked me if they could listen to one session from this conference, which one would I recommend….I would, without hesitation, recommend this one.

Again, these are my notes….I trust that you will enjoy.  Also, thanks again to Timmy Brister for this picture above. 

 

Together for the Gospel
4-27-06 PM Session
Dr. John Piper

Why Expositional Preaching is Particularly Glorifying to God

Reflections on the kind of preaching God would raise up: Whitefield prayed for men mighty in the Scriptures; their lives dominated by the majesty of God; lives dominated by the doctrines of grace; men who are willing to be fool for Christ’s sake; who will labor and suffer and their supreme desire is to win their Master’s affirmation before the judgment seat.

Mighty in the Scripture…aglow with the truths of the doctrines of grace…..broken for sin……and dominated by a majesty of God. Whitefield believed that preaching was heralding the Word of God from that kind of heart.

Preaching is taking any topic and taking it into the blazing center of the glory of God. In the last century, the man who embodied this best was Martin Llyod-Jones. JI. Packer said of him, “I have never heard such preaching.” Oh that God would raise up men who leave their hearers with a spiritual sense of shock at the sense of God.

We need pastors today who have an amazing gripping of the passion of God’s glory. Pastor’s who know that Christ lays absolute claim on the earth. The death of the Son of God and the damnation of unrepentant sinners is absolutely the loudest cry we could have on earth. There is a weight to this office!!! Where is this weight going to be felt if not from you? Veggie Tales? Not in a million years?

God planned for His Son to be crucified and Hell to be terrible so we would have the clearest possible knowledge of what is at stake. The mantle of preaching is soaked in the blood of Jesus and singed with the fires of Hell.

Some evangelicals denounce the horror of the cross and the horror of the hell. Hell is demythologized into self-misery in the world. We must know that the world is not overrun with a sense of God’s seriousness….there is no excess. Therefore, the joy of millions of Christians today is paper-thin.

Where is the Spirit of Jesus in our preaching? Do we deny ourselves and our life so that we may lose it in Christ? Do we renounce all our possessions? Do we hate our mother and our father? Do we let the dead bury the dead? Fear Christ!!

Portrayal of the glory of God: What you believe about the necessity and the nature of preaching is governed by your sense of the glory of God and how people awaken to this. From beginning to end, in the Bible, nothing is more ultimate in the mind and heart of God is the glory of God.

We are for His glory (Ephesians 1:6; Isa. 6; Isa. 48; Romans 15; 1 Cor. 10:31; 2 Thess 1:9). Therefore, the message of the church is to declare His glory among the nations. What is of value in the mind and heart of God? God! And His glory! Be struck by the passion of God for the glory of God!

From all eternity, God has known Himself and loved Himself perfectly. He has eternally seen His beauty reflected back to Him in His Son. He has savored His beauty. He is therefore, the holiest and happiest of Beings as far as beings can be conceived. We cannot conceive of a greater happiness.

God does intend to share this with us! Knowing and sharing His glory is the reason He created Himself. Cf. John 17:26.

How does God’s aim to share His eternal experience of knowing Himself and showing Himself relates to His love for us? (i.e., where does the love of God fit into your discussion?) This is the definition of His love for us….He has chosen to share this message of His gospel with us.

You don’t honor fully what you don’t enjoy! God is not glorified fully be being known rightly. He is glorified by being known and so enjoyed that our lives are transformed into the kind of lives that display His worth. If you want to live a kind of life that looks like you cherish the King of kings and Lord of lords then it must change!

Cf. Matthew 11:27. Cf. John 15:11. These two texts mean this: we know the Father with the knowledge of the Son and we enjoy the Father with the joy of the Son. Knowledge and joy are invisible to the world….until they change you! Let your light so shine that they may see your good deeds and give glory to your Father. If your life has about it the bahvior and the flavor that can only be explained by the hope of “another world,” (i.e., heaven) then they might ask you about the hope that you have! When the glory of God is the treasure of our lives, we will not store up treasures on this earth.

Every sin flows from a failure to treasure the glory of God above all things. Therefore, one crucial, visible way is through humble, sacrificial, self-denying service to other people.

How people awaken to the glory of God: This is your goal as a pastor. I want to so live, pray, preach, lead, suffer, so people will not scratch their heads at a message such as this. How do you awaken a heartfelt, “YES!!” Fewer stories….more Him!

2 Corinthians 3:18. This is God’s way of changing people….transforming them into His likeness. We do not need a new technique. People are changed the way God wants them to change – by beholding His glory. If you have found another way that “works,” are you really producing people who behold Him correctly? Our job as preachers is to make Him seen – this is the only way we have to change people.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6. This is 2 Cor. 3:18 brought to light. Christ and the Father – ONE. The gospel is the gospel of the glory of Christ. We behold the glory of the Lord most clearly and most crucially in the gospel. So much so that Paul calls it the gospel of the glory of Christ. Here is why this is so massively important – the gospel is a message, sentences, words, and proclamation. Here is the paradox – we must see glory by hearing the gospel coming out of the preacher’s mouth. We see with our ears!

Cf. 2 Samuel 3:21 as illustrative of the above point. God revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the Word of the Lord. The Lord appeared by the Word of the Lord. People must see with the eyes of the heart (Ephesians 3:19). We must aim our words at the eyes of the heart. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ because Christ appears in the Word of Christ…He and His glory!

How this all calls us to a preaching called expository exultation: Expository exultation is Piper’s definition of preaching. If it is the purpose of God to display His glory in the world and if we display it because we have been changed by knowing and enjoying it and we behold it best in the gospel and the gospel is proclamation…then proclamation of the glorious gospel of Christ is our job!!

Expository. Why? Because the gospel comes in word. It is an amazing thing that Paul puts so much stock in the glory of Christ and His Word. Piper’s five components of the gospel – each one begs for exposition.

    1. The gospel is a message about historical events. 1 Corinthians 15:3. There is no gospel without the person, life, and death of Jesus Christ.
    2. The gospel is a message about what those events achieved. For example, the payment for our sins. The completion of perfect obedience. The removal of the wrath of God. The installation of King Jesus as Lord of the earth. The destruction of death. All before you were ever born.
    3. The gospel is the message about the transfer of the achievements to particular persons. How does this happen? The gospel!! If it is by works then it is no gospel. This is BY FAITH ALONE!
    4. The gospel is the message about the good things that are true about us because the achievement has been applied to us. For instance…God is now only merciful to you because of Christ. You are counted righteous in Christ. We are freed from guilt. We are positionally and progressively holy.
    5. The gospel is a message about the glorious God Himself as our final, eternal, all-satisfying treasure. We cannot stop at #4. We cannot give the impression that justification or forgiveness is the end of line. There is no gospel if that is the end of the line.

Again, all of these beg for exposition!!

Exultation. Woe to us if we do not exult in this over the Word. Our face, tone, demeanor, and life must display exultation in the value of the gospel. The value of the gospel is as important as the truth of the gospel. Don’t lie about the preciousness of the gospel by your demeanor over this Word.