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How Can I Become a Humbler Calvinist? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Happy Thursday. You might remember a couple of weeks back we looked at ten
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  reasons why we need the doctrine of unconditional election. That was an APGA nineteen
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  sixty nine, and one of those reasons was found in First Corinthians one twenty
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  seven. God's design for unconditional election is that God gets praised, we get
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  humbled. God gets praised, we get humbled. The doctrines of grace are
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  fundamentally humbling. Ideally, sometimes that's not what happens, though, if we're
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  not careful, a wrong understanding of Calvinism can breed pride in our hearts.
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  That's Nathaniel's dilemma. He lives in Tennessee. Hello pastor John to Tony,
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  thank you both so much for the APJ podcast. It has helped me love
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  Jesus more and to long for his return to love his appearing. I am
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  a five point Calvinist. I believe that God chooses a people for himself before
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  the foundation of the world, to be as children, as Ephesians one versus
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  four to six teaches. I know that God chooses people owing totally to his
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  free grace and wisdom, and not owing to anything within the people. Whom
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  he chooses. However, sometimes, as I begin to overflow a thankfulness to
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  God for choosing me and saving me by a sovereign grace, I sent some
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  arrogance in me, thinking that I am special to God because his special grace
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  has been extended to me and not to others. I know that my arrogance
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  is wrong. I did nothing to save myself, and I don't deserve to
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  be saved at all. My saving faith in Christ is a total gift of
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  God, as Ephesians two verses eight to nine says, So I have no
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  grounds for boasting. I've seen God do some work in my heart in this
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  area recently, so I'm hopeful that He will bring about the good work that
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  he started in me to completion flippings one six. But in the meantime,
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  in addition to swimming in God's word daily, are there any helpful pointers you
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  might have for me in how I can become a humbler Calvinist. Well,
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  not just Nathaniel in Tennessee, but for me and for all of us.
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  Here's the frightening thing about the human heart. There is no doctrine, no
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  theology, no set of ideas, no creeds that can provide an infallible protection
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  against the pride and boasting of the human heart. Period the heart can find
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  a way to distort the most humbling circumstances into ego enhancing circumstances. And the
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  heart can make even the most humbling doctrines a stepping stone to boasting. It
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  can, it does Jeremiah seventeen nine. The heart is deceitful above all things,
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  and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Jesus said in twenty one.
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  From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,
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  pride, foolishness, pride. That's the deepest disease of the human heart.
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  And even in the saved, the blood bought spirit and dwelt mature, yes,
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  mature, saint of God, the disease of pride can raise its head
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  from the grave of mortification and make us ashamed. The doctrine of unconditional election
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  is designed by God to destroy human boasting. Yes, that's right, it
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  is First Corinthians one, twenty seven. God chose what is foolish in the
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  world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to
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  shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world,
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  even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that
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  no human being might boast in the presence of God. Same thing with the
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  doctrine of irresistible grace, that saving faith is a gift, not an achievement,
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  is designed by God to destroy boasting Ephesians two eight. By grace,
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  you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It
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  is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no
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  one may boast. Same with the doctrine of total depravity is designed to crush
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  us all to the common ground of hopeless beggars and remove boasting James three fourteen.
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  If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not
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  boast and be false to the truth. Same thing with the doctrine of God's
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  all pervasive providence over the smallest details of our lives. It's designed to blast
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  boasting out of our lives. James fourth, thirteen to sixteen. Come now,
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  you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a
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  town and spend a year there in trade and make a prophet. You do
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  not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life, for you are
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  a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you
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  ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this
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  or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such
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  boasting is evil, and on and on it goes. The doctrines of grace,
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  the Biblical doctrines, the Biblical story, the Biblical truths are designed to
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  show God's rights and God's prerogatives, and God's power and God's authority, and
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  God's utterly undeserved grace poured out in our lives. All of them are meant
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  to have the double effect. One, let no one boast himself. Two
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  let him who boasts boast in the Lord. So what can we do if
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  we find ourselves actually twisting such truths into a platform for self exaltation. Number
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  one bemoan our present ongoing sinning, not just past sins, not just sins
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  in principle, but the ones in my daily life that don't yield to warfare.
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  This is what caused Paul to cry out in Row four, wretched man
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  that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks
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  be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord we must be painfully aware of
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  indwelling sin, grieve over it, and with trembling cleaved grace. Number two,
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  we can keep before us the agonies of Christ, and I mean the
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  real horrible torture and sufferings of Christ, with the awareness that this is how
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  bad I am, this is what I deserved, this is what it took
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  to save me, this much horrible suffering. James Denny said, no man
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  can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to
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  save. In other words, self exaltation and a sense of Christ's greatness in
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  saving us can't go together. Number three, let the story of the Pharisee
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  and the tax collector shock us because the Pharisee praised like a Calvinist God.
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  I thank you that I am not like other men. He's given God the
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  glory for his sanctification. But even though he prayed like he wanted to give
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  God glory for his holiness, it was all a subtle way of self exaltation.
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  That's why the story ends. In Luke eighteen fourteen, everyone who exalts
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  himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
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  This should shock us and make us vigilant. Number four, And finally,
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  we should plead to God for the miracle of human It's a miracle. It's
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  a miracle because it cannot be achieved by us. If we achieve it,
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  we'll be proud of achieving it. It's a gift, and the nature of
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  the gift is peculiar. It's a gift of self forgetting. If we are
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  conscious of being humble, we're on the way to losing it. So let
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  us pray desperately that good theology would bear good fruit. Let's pray for this
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  beautiful reality described by Jonathan Edwards. I love this quote of what we're really
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  after all. Gracious affections are broken hearted affections. A truly Christian love,
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  either to God or men, is a humble, broken hearted love. The
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  desires of the saints, however earnest or humble desires. Their hope is a
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  humble hope. Their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory,
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  is a humble, broken hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor
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  in spirit and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal
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  lowliness of behavior. Amen, So good, and if you're new to all
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  of this and you want more information on Calvinism. Maybe you are one,
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  maybe you are and you don't know you are one, or maybe you just
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  don't know if you're a Calvinist. We have a little primer on Calvinism and
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  is opposite Arminianism, and that can be found in ABJ six fifty nine ABJ
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  six fifty nine. That episode is simply titled Watershed Differences between Calvinists and Arminians
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  ABJ six fifty nine in the archive right now at ask pastor John dot com.
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  Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.
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  If you want to ask Pastor John, type out your question and type it
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  out as succinctly as possible, please and then email it to me at ask
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  Pastor John at Desiring Good dot org. I'm your host, Tony Ranki,
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  and we will see you back here on Monday. Thanks for listening.