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30th November 2024
SaturdayReflection
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'John Piper'
'founder and teacher of Desiring God.com'
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"How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice"
I invite you to look with me at a New Testament book of Hebrews 11v6
No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and rewards those who seek him.
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better resurrection.
Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.
Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
My desire and prayer for you is that your life and your ministry have a radical flavour.
A risk-taking flavour.
A gutsy, counter-cultural, war-time flavour to it that makes the average prosperous person in your church feel uncomfortable.
A strange mixture of tenderness and toughness that keeps worldly people a little off balance.
A pervasive summons to something more and something hazardous and something wonderful.
A saltiness and brightness, something like the life of Jesus.
When Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth," and, "You are the light of the world," I think he was referring to the preceding verses where he had described the most outrageous joy imaginable.
"Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven".
Be glad when you are persecuted and slandered.
My desire for you is that your life and ministry taste like that.
Reviling comes. Persecution comes. Slander comes.
And you rejoice that you are counted worthy be shamed for the name of Jesus.
And you preach and live in such a way that over a decade or two or three your church comes to be bright and salty like that - counting it all joy when they meet various trials, because you have taught them and shown them that they have a great reward in heaven - the all-satisfying, everlasting experience of the supremacy of Christ.
You have lived. You have treasured Christ above the accumulation of stuff.
You have laid up treasures in heaven, not on earth.
You have not only fled fornication and adultery.
You have fled opulence and ostentation and riches.
You have remembered the story of the rich young man.
And you have blazoned on the walls of your mind the words of Paul,
"Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction"
You have eaten the words of Isaiah, and they have become sweet to your soul:
"All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever"
My desire and prayer for you is that your life and ministry have a radical flavour.
I say that for the glory of Christ.
The world does not glorify Jesus as their supreme Treasure because of our health, wealth, and prosperity.
What the world is waiting to see - what might awaken a sense of Christ's value - is something radical.
Some risk. Some crazy sacrifice. Some extraordinary love.
Something salty and bright.
They may not like it when they see it.
They may crucify it.
But they will not be bored.
Stephen's face shown like an angel. His wisdom was irresistible.
So they killed him.
But they did not yawn, and they did not go to sleep.
And Acts 8 makes clear his death was not in vain.
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This is an edited version.
The full article, and Bible references, is avaiable on request
Scroll down for the continuation of this discussion.
'John Piper'
is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy.
More
Where Are God's Men?
In 1939, Howard Guinness, one of the early founders of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, wrote a little book called Sacrifice.
He was trying to do then what I am trying to do now.
He wrote,
Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap, and be faithful even unto death, who will lose their lives for Christ's, flinging them away for love of him?
Where are those who will live dangerously, and be reckless in this service?
Where are the men of prayer?
Where are the men who count God's Word of more importance to them than their daily food?
Where are the men who, like Moses of old, commune with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend?
Where are God's men in this day of God's power?
Indeed, where are the pastors who say with the apostle Paul,
"I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God"
Where are the young women - single and married - who say with Esther, when the life of her people hung in the balance and Mordecai asked her to risk her life,
"I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16)?
The Certainty of Suffering
I ask you this not just because the world desperately needs to see that kind of pastor, but also because Jesus makes it crystal clear that if you take him seriously, you are going to suffer.
In other words, radical willingness to risk and sacrifice and suffer is the only authentic ministry there is.
The Lord has made it very plain
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
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