Tag Archives: john piper

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What God is Doing Right Now in our Crazy World

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Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash

In the gospel of John, he tells his disciples two incredible things: the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these (14:12), and it is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away, the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you (16:7).

These two verses tell us so much about what God is doing in our world today and how he moves within the lives of Jesus’ followers to bring about his will.

For many Christians, and honestly for me as well, these two verses seem confusing. How is it possible that anyone can do the works that Jesus did or even greater works than he did? And how could it be better without Jesus here?

I’m sure his disciples, just like Christians who have been mystified about this for centuries, had the same confused looks on their faces. What do you mean it would be better if you left? What do you mean we will do greater works?

In John 14, Jesus tells us how this happens. The person who believes and keeps his commands will do greater works than these and see the counselor (Holy Spirit) come to him.

As Alan Fadling said, “Obedience is not the path to being loved. Obedience is the reality of being at home in love.”

Obedience is not the path to being loved. Obedience is the reality of being at home in love. – Alan. Fadling

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This is so important.

Jesus doesn’t say obedience saves you. Obedience reveals the reality of your salvation.

Jesus doesn’t say obedience saves you. Obedience reveals the reality of your salvation.

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So, the person who will do the works that Jesus did and greater works, the person whose life is better with “the spirit in them instead of Jesus beside them,” is the one who loves God and keeps his commands (John 14:15).

Then, Jesus tells us what followers of Jesus experience in the spirit each day: The presence of the Father, Son, and Spirit; counselor; and teacher.

Jesus tells us that we will find our home through the Father, Son, and Spirit and won’t be left as orphans. Jesus knew that his disciples would feel abandoned and vulnerable, so he told them, “I won’t leave you as orphans; you will not be alone” (John 14:18). As a follower of Jesus, you and I are never alone. We are not navigating anything by ourselves. We are never abandoned, no matter how much the enemy makes us feel that way.

Then he says the Holy Spirit is our counselor (or advocate in some translations) and teacher.

A counselor carries the idea of helper, which the Spirit is also called. Someone who helps us, guides us, convicts us, and gives advice and direction.

But also a teacher of all truth. So, in the moments we aren’t sure what to do, what to say, which way to go, which decision is better, when we need wisdom and truth, the Spirit gives it to us. We are not alone. We are not trying to figure it out by ourselves. God isn’t holding back on us.

What does our world need now?

Followers of Jesus who do greater works than Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

Our world needs followers of Jesus who do greater works than Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

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What are the “greater works” that you will do — all of you?

Pastor John Piper says, “You will receive the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ. Before the resurrection of Jesus, nobody in the history of the world had ever done that, not even Jesus. And in the power of that absolutely new experience — the indwelling of the crucified and risen Christ — your works of love and your message of life in union with Christ, will point people to the glory of the risen Son of God, and you will be the instrument of their forgiveness based on the finished work of Christ (John 20:23). This will be new. This will be greater than Jesus’ earthly miracles, because this is what he came to accomplish by his death and resurrection.”

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Should Women Lead & Teach in a Church?

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Sunday, we continued our series at Community Covenant on 1 Timothy and unpacked 1 Timothy 2:8 – 15. If you’d like to watch it, you can do so here. 

One of the reasons I love preaching through books of the Bible is that it keeps us from going to a passage in a vacuum. Paul didn’t just write these verses to Timothy; he wrote them in the context of a letter to a church, wrestling with specific issues. Those issues, as Paul lays out in the first seven verses of the letter, are about protecting the church from false teaching. He doesn’t immediately identify the false teaching or the false teachers (he does that later in the letter), but that topic shapes how we read these verses. 

The role of men and women in the church and the home has been debated for centuries, and as I said on Sunday, it has caused a lot of confusion, hurt, and pain. Leading up to the sermon, I heard countless stories from women in our church and other female church leaders about the hurt they experienced because of how the verses of Paul have been interpreted in some circles. For some of us, these are simply verses; for others, these are personal verses with stories and conversations attached to them. 

I say that because if the goal of a church is to build each other up and help everyone to flourish, we must be aware of how each of us comes to a text. I heard this repeatedly while in seminary: none of us come to a text with a clean slate; we all bring something to every passage we read. So, as I said on Sunday, and as you continue to process this and future sermons, we need to be honest about the lens we bring: what does our background ingrain in us, what do we hope the text says, what do we hope the text doesn’t say, how does being a male or a female affect how we read a text, how does our educational level or skin color affect how we read a text. All of these matter because they shape what we see. To be clear, that doesn’t mean we are wrong in our interpretations, but we need to be humble as we listen to people who see something differently and not brush it off. I imagine Paul ran into much of that in his travels in the first century the further he got from Jerusalem. 

Do we divide over or debate the question of women in leadership?

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The other thing we need to be aware of is where we place when it comes to our theological beliefs. Gerry Breshears has a helpful grid, which I shared on Sunday: 

  • Beliefs we die for. 
  • Beliefs we divide for. 
  • Beliefs we debate for. 
  • Beliefs we decide for. 

Beliefs we “die for” are things like the authority of scripture, the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and there’s only one way to God. There are other things on that list, but that gives you an idea. 

Beliefs we “divide for” are beliefs that would cause us to leave a church or start attending a church. They are strongly held beliefs, but we don’t die for them, but we hold them strongly. Each of us has these beliefs. Some churches place the question of men and women in this category. We, as a church, do not. We place it in the next one. 

Next is the beliefs we “debate for.” These are beliefs we hold, even strongly, but they are debated throughout church history, and so we hold them loosely, linking arms with brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with us. We will even attend churches we disagree with as long as they are in this category. 

There was a time when I held a different view on this question and was in the complementarian camp, and I would’ve put this belief in the divide for category. So would the church planting network we planted in 2008. I’ll share later more about my journey and the shift that has happened over the years. But my point right now in sharing that is we can shift our thoughts on things, and the Spirit of God does change us as we mature. 

As promised, for those who want to go deeper, answer your burning questions, or even learn where I got a lot of the information I shared on Sunday, here you go. This isn’t exhaustive in any way, as there are scores of books, talks, and podcasts on the subject, but this will at least get you started. 

Preston Sprinkle has a helpful podcast called Theology in the Raw, and he has many guests with doctorate degrees, diving into a lot of textual and historical issues around this topic. Here are a few episodes to get you started: 

Recently, Tyler Staton, the lead pastor of Bridgetown Church, gave a helpful lecture series on women in leadership, particularly around eldership, which we’ll unpack this coming Sunday as we look at 1 Timothy 3:1 – 13. You can watch those talks here and here. 

Books to read on the question of women in leadership.

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Here are a few books I’d recommend checking out:

No matter where you land on this question, there are 3 questions I ended with on Sunday that I think are important for us to wrestle with: 

3 questions every church and Christian must wrestle with as they think through the question of women in leadership.

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  • How do we honor each other?
  • How do we encourage the full use of spiritual gifts that God has given to each person, male and female, so the body of Christ, the church, is built up?
  • How do we ensure that each person, male and female, flourishes?
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How to Handle Your Shame

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shame

All of us to one degree or another carry around shame. Things we’ve done, things done to us. Things we’ve said, things said to us. Things we wished we had done, and things we wish that others had done. Shame shows up in all kinds of places and in all kinds of people.

What we often overlook is how much shame shapes our identity and our lives. It becomes a driving force in our lives, how we work and how we relate to others and God.

In Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God, John Piper says shame comes from three causes:

  1. Guilt. This is the one many of us know well. The addiction, the hidden sin, the abuse we don’t talk about, the affair, the divorce, the poor parenting, our failure at work and in life. We carry around guilt for ourselves and often without thinking, for others. When guilt becomes public knowledge, we have shame. Now we are known for what we have feared.
  2. Shortcomings. Shortcomings and failures are something all of us experience. Some of them are real and others imagined. Some are life shaping, and other shortcomings we simply shrug off. It is the ones that are life shaping that lead to shame. When our frame of mind says, “You are a failure, you aren’t good enough, you aren’t beautiful, strong enough or worthwhile”, we experience shame.
  3. Improprieties. These are the experiences in our life where we feel silly, look stupid or are embarrassed. We make a mistake, and it feels like everyone knows about it.

What do you do with your shame?

According to Romans 10:11, if you are a follower of Jesus, you will not be put to shame.

Yet shame is a driving factor in the lives of so many.

Shame is a driving factor in the lives of so many.

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Here are six ways to move forward from your shame:

6 ways to move forward from your shame.

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1. Name your shame. If you don’t name something, it takes ownership of you. This is a crucial step. You must name the hurt, the guilt, the shortcoming, the impropriety, the embarrassment, the abuse, the loss, the misstep, the sin. If you don’t, you stay stuck.

Whatever you can’t name in your life takes ownership of you.

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I’ve met countless people who couldn’t say the name of an ex, name the situation of hurt or talk about something. This doesn’t mean that you are a victim or wallow in your pain, but naming something is crucial. Without this first step, the others become difficult to impossible.

The saying, “Whatever we don’t own, owns us”, applies here. This is a crucial, crucial step.

2. Identify the emotions attached to it. Many times when we are hurt, we are an emotional wreck and can’t see a way forward. All we know is that we are hurt, that life isn’t as we’d hoped, but we aren’t sure what to do.

What emotions are attached to your shame? Is it guilt? Loss? Failure? Missed opportunity? Sadness? Hopelessness? Indifference?

Name them.

Name the emotion that goes with your abuse, abandonment, divorce, failed business, dropping out of school, not meeting your expectations or the expectations of someone else.

Often times we feel shame when we have a different emotion attached to it, but shame is far more familiar to us. Do you feel neglected or hurt or sad? What emotion is conjured up from a memory?

3. Confess the sins that are there. Do you always have sin when you feel shameful? No. Sometimes it is misplaced shame. It is shame you have no business owning. You didn’t sin; someone else sinned against you.

Sometimes, though, there is a sin on your part. You may have sinned, and that’s why you feel shame. Sometimes your sin might be holding on to that person or situation.

Sometimes you need to confess that your shame is keeping you from moving forward and keeping you stuck.

Bring those sins to light.

4. Grieve the loss. When we have shame, there is a loss. This loss might be a missed opportunity or missed happiness. It might be bigger than that and be a missed childhood, a loss of your 20’s, a loss of health or job opportunity.

It might be a relationship that will never be, something you can never go back to.

As you think about your shame, what did you lose? What did you miss out on? What did that situation prevent you from doing or experiencing? What hurt do you carry around? What will never be the same because of that situation?

5. Name what you want. This one is new for me, but it has to do with your desires.

Often the reason we stay stuck is because we know what stuck is. We don’t know what the future holds. Beyond that, we don’t know what we actually want.

We carry shame around from a relationship with a father who walked out. Do you want a relationship? Do you want to be in touch?

We carry shame from a failed business. Do you want to get back in the game?

Can you name, in the situation associated with your shame, what you want?

Sadly, many people cannot.

If you can’t name what you want, if you can’t identify a desire, you will struggle to move forward.

6. Identify what God wants you to know about Him. When we carry around shame, we carry around a lie. In identifying that lie, we are identifying the truth that God wants us to know about Him.

If you feel unloved, the truth that God wants you to know is that you are loved. If you feel unwanted, God wants you to know you are wanted. If you feel dirty, God wants you to know the truth that in Him you are clean.

All throughout scripture we are told that God is a Father, that He is as close to us as a mother nursing her child, that God is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, gracious, tender, strong and for us.

The list goes on and on.

In that list, though, is the truth, the antidote to your shame and what you need to remind yourself of to move forward and live into the freedom of Jesus.

6 ways to move forward from your shame.

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Freedom is hard.

Let’s be honest, freedom is difficult. Living in sin, shame, guilt and regret is easy. It is what we know. It is where most people live and reside.

Freedom is scary. Freedom is unknown. Freedom leaves us vulnerable. Freedom leaves us not in control.

Yet, this is what it means to be a child of God. To live in freedom. Overflowing freedom.

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7 Rules When You Meet a Pastor’s Kid

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book

I came across this in Barnabas Piper’s great book The Pastor’s Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity, which I highly recommend.

If you attend church or meet a Pastor’s kid, here are things to keep in mind when you meet them. They’ll appreciate it:

  1. Do not ask us “What is it like to be the son or daughter of…?” How are we supposed to answer that question? Could you easily describe being the child of your parents? Remember, PKs are normal people with just a different upbringing than you. Please treat us that way. We think of our parents as parents, nothing more.
  2. Do not quote our dads to us. This is really and truly annoying because it comes across as one of two things. Either you are proving your piousness by being so aware of the utterance of the beloved pastor, or you are being condescending and holding our parents words over our heads. Neither is impressive or appreciated.
  3. Do not ask us anything personal you would not ask of anyone else. If, perchance, you have gained some knowledge of a PK through a sermon illustration or book or hearsay, it is best to keep it to yourself. To ask a question based on knowledge that you gained in an impersonal manner makes you look like either a stalker or a reporter. Both are creepy.
  4. Do not ask us anything about our dads positions on anything. “What does your dad think about …?” is a question no PK wants to answer – not about politics, the roles of women in the church, predestination, the use of drums in the worship service, spiritual gifts, race, or anything else. We have opinions and beliefs, though. And we like to converse. So you could ask us what we think, like a normal person.
  5. Do not assume you can gain audience with the pastor through us. That’s what the church secretary or the pastor’s assistant is for. Please let us be children. We usually don’t have the ability to make a meeting happen, and we almost never want to.
  6. Do not assume that we agree with all the utterances of our fathers. I know it’s hard to believe that any child could grow up and disagree with her parents, but it does happen. It is not kind or safe to assume that our parents’ positions are ours. And when you find out we don’t agree, please refrain from being shocked or offended.
  7. Get to know us. This is a good rule for anyone, but it especially pertains to PKs. Just as you want people to value your opinions, personality and character quirks, so do we. More often than not you will get a surprise. Wow, that PK actually has a sense of humor! Who knew PKs could be so fun? Wait, he said what? Leave your assumptions at the door and let us be us. You’ll probably like what you find.

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You Aren’t Gospel Centered

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There’s been a resurgence in the last few years around the gospel. This is a good thing. We are starting to have a larger view of the gospel, seeing the gospel as more than just how one is made right with God, how one is changed and how one goes to heaven. We are seeing the gospel for Christians as well and how the power of the gospel changes us into who God has called us to be.

This is positive.

It has also created a new thing to complain about.

Now, preachers are gospel centered preachers. If you want to sell a book, throw the word gospel into it. Parenting, preaching, church planting, maybe even write a book called the gospel. 

Now, bloggers complain about writers and preachers who aren’t gospel centered. Maybe, if you are a pastor, you’ve had someone tell you, “I’m leaving your church because you aren’t gospel centered.”

When I’ve heard this personally, what this often means is, “You don’t preach the gospel the way I think the gospel should be preached.” In other words, “I think the gospel has specific components and need to be said in a certain order (ie. the Romans road) and if you don’t say them in that order, you haven’t preached the gospel.

This has also become code for deeper preaching and not having to move forward and do anything with a sermon someone gives.

So, if you are a pastor and get someone who comes up to you after a sermon or sends you an email telling you that you aren’t gospel centered, even though someone started following Jesus in that same sermon, what do you do?

  1. Ask them what it means to be gospel centered. Most of the people who will make this complaint have a prophet lens. For them, gospel centered is the gospel they heard when they got saved, how Tim Keller or John Piper tells the gospel message or something else, but something very specific. One of the best ways to learn from them and help them understand your perspective is to ask them what they think is gospel centered. Sadly, most people who make this complaint cannot actually articulate it. I had one guy complain about this for almost a year and he could never tell me what it meant to be gospel centered, only that our church wasn’t it. Finally, he said we were to sensitive to seekers, so that made us not gospel centered. At that point, you can actually have a conversation, when terms are defined.
  2. Lovingly tell them the gospel from your perspective. As you move forward, explain to them what the gospel is from your perspective. All over the New Testament, there is evidence of Peter and Paul communicating the gospel differently depending upon their audience. This is important for a pastor to keep in mind. So, what John Piper says at a Passion conference may have a different goal and audience than your church in New England or rural Nebraska.
  3. Understand the fears that come from someone with this complaint. Most of the complaints around this, and I can say this since the camp I’m a part of, the Reformed camp is the one blogging and complaining about this issue. It comes from fear. As we watch our country become more and more liberal, people are fearful that the church is going the same way, and many are. This is a legitimate concern, not fear. Scripture is clear that we are not to be afraid. This is a great shepherding moment for you as a pastor. Many leaders miss this opportunity in an effort to be right or win the argument.

In the end, gospel centered preaching should always push people to a decision. It should show someone, whether they are a follower of Jesus or not, who they are apart from Jesus, their default sinful nature and how their only hope for life, freedom and peace is found in the power of the gospel.

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