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How Can I Convince Comfortable People to Embrace Christ? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Several decades ago, preaching was defined as an act meant to disturb the comfortable
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  and to comfort the disturbed. Maybe you've heard that definition before. Of preaching
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  while disturbing the comfortable, remains one of the great challenges faced by the preacher
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  and the evangelist and all of us who seek to share the Gospel in the
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  prosperous West today, because to be comfortable in sin apart from Christ is the
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  deadliest place to be. And with that concern comes this question from a listener
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  named Matt. Hello, Pastor John, as an evangelist, what have you
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  done to try and convince people who have their material needs met of their need
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  for Christ. I have a wealthy brother who has no interest in the Gospel
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  or spiritual matters. I've been praying for him for years to be saved,
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  and I just don't know how to break through all the comforts of his life
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  that make him feel confident and assured and safe. This question resonates deeply with
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  me, not only because of people I know who are outwardly quite content and
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  yet are lost, but also because my father was an evangelist who saw thousands
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  of people come to Christ through his ministry and said to me when I was
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  a boy, Johnny. Getting people saved through the gospel seems not to be
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  the hardest thing in my ministry. But getting them lost so that they know
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  they need to be saved, that's the hardest thing. So this question is
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  not new to me. It's been around for a long time. I suspect
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  it's not unique to our time. The thing that this question is getting at
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  is that most people do not feel any need for the most important thing that
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  Jesus accomplished and offers. And add to that the tragedy that so many Christians
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  and even some preachers in our day have altered the message of the gospel so
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  that the main thing, the most important thing Jesus accomplished by dying and rising
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  again, is not the most important thing being offered when people share the Gospel,
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  but rather there's a constant effort to make the message fit the felt need,
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  which drastically alters the message from something infinite and ultimate and glorious and precious
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  to something temporal and far less important. The Prosperity Gospel, of course,
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  is the most egregious example of this, as prosperity preachers try to sell Jesus
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  as a kind of magical force in your life life that will make things go
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  better in this world. But there are less egregious forms of prosperity gospel distortion
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  which do the same thing at a lesser level. That is pretty much infecting
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  the American Church. We create alterations of the Gospel as we try to persuade
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  people with our own seemingly innocuous version of the prosperity Gospel by mainly referring to
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  the fact that your psychological state, or your marriage or children, or finances
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  or health will improve if you accept Jesus. Now, my father was a
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  very happy man. He knew the wonderful effects of God's forgiveness and justification by
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  faith and the hope of eternal life. He knew the wonderful effects here and
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  now of being a Christian. He was a happy, well rounded, balanced
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  Christian. I think that's probably why I'm a Christian today. I never saw
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  in my father or my mother any reason to jettison what they were so authentically
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  changed by. He wrote it. My father wrote a little paperback Most fundamentalists
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  don't write books like this, and he was one, a very happy one.
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  He wrote a little paperback book. I have it on my shelf,
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  A good time and how to have it. Yeah, and yet he also
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  knew that most people thought they were having a good time and the Gospel would
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  just get in the way. That was the problem. That's what he had
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  to overcome. And therefore what I remember most clearly in his preaching is the
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  flame in his eyes of mingled kindness and severity. When he quoted Hebrews nine
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  twenty seven, it is appointed for man to die once, and after that
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  comes judgment. Oh. I can just hear him say it. I can
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  see the look on his face. Sometimes we joke and say, well,
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  two things are unavoidable in life, right, death and taxes. Well that's
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  not true. Taxes are avoidable. You can just go to jail. But
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  there are two things that are unavoidable without Christ, death and judgment. Death
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  and hell. The main thing Jesus came into the world to accomplish was to
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  make it possible for human beings under the just sentence of death and hell to
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  escape, to escape that eternal condemnation and live forever, glorifying God by their
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  happiness in him. That's what he came to do. At the bottom of
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  all other things. What God sent Jesus into the world to do was to
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  solve every human problem eventually. And the problem that has to be solved at
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  the bottom of all other problems is the problem that we are under the wrath
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  of God. That's humanity's biggest problem. No matter how rich we are,
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  or happy we are, or healthy, or famous, or strong or beautiful
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  we are, We're all sinners. We have belittled the glory of God by
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  making so little of it, and we deserve eternal condemnation. And Romans five
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  nine says, since we have now been justified by His blood, much more
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  shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. And first Thessalonians
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  one ten, God raised Jesus from the dead, who delivers us from the
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  wrath to come. In Romans two four, because of your heart and impenitent
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  heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when
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  God's righteous judgment is revealed. This is the problem at the bottom under all
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  other problems, And this is the main problem for people who feel they have
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  no problems and don't need the Gospel. The rich, the comfortable, the
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  content, the poor, the comfortable the content. So my father pleaded with
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  healthy, wealthy, self satisfied people to wake up and realize that every heartbeat
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  could be your last. And you're not ready to faith an all holy God.
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  There's only one way to be ready, and that is to be united
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  to Jesus Christ by faith in him as our savior and Lord and treasure.
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  According to Romans eight three, God condemned sin in Jesus Christ's flesh, that
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  is, he gave his son to bear the condemnation of his own wrath for
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  all who will trust him. Or in Galatians three thirteen, Christ redeemed us
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  from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it
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  is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. My father would plead
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  with people. If you don't accept the curse that Jesus came under God's wrath
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  against you to give, you will have to bear your own curse in hell.
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  That's the one crucial message that our comfortable, oblivious friends and neighbors need
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  to hear. There are many other good things to say that dare not be
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  neglected. We need to be deeply aware that this is a message of love
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  about an act of love that is so great it cannot be exaggerated. Just
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  before mentioning God's wrath in Romans five nine, Paul said, God shows his
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  love. God shows his love for us in that, while we were still
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  sinners, Christ died for us. There is no greater love than that God
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  would put his only son through hell on the cross to save his enemies from
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  going to hell. That's the heart of the gospel. So Matt, let's
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  pray that God would give us tears and compassion, not just for the pains
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  and sorrows of this life. Oh my goodness, you read the news of
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  what's happening around the world, and there is just so much suffering. Now,
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  yes, by all means, let us weep for that, but also
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  may God give us tears for the pain free people, the comfortable people,
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  the healthy, wealthy people who are blind to what awaits them without Christ.
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  God will show you, Matt, when and how to give this message as
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  you seek to lay down your life for others, see will He'll show you.
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  I have seen such warnings, I mean severe, earnest, tearful warnings
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  from my father and in my own ministry. I have seen warnings from my
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  father and from me bear the fruit of salvation. And may God cause our
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  love to bound with great wisdom so that we know how best to deliver this
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  essential message. Amen. And your dad's earnestness lives on in his son.
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  Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of the soft prosperity gospel, this
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  less egregious form of prosperity gospel distortion, this distortion that has pretty much infected
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  the American church. See the APJ book on pages one oh six to one
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  thirteen, where I walk through many of the episodes that we've published here and
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  ask Pastor John and how Pastor John has addressed this infection over the years.
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  It's super instructive to put all of those episodes together, and I did that
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  on pages one oh six to one thirteen of the APJ book. Well have
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  you ever been bored? Of course you have, we all have. We've
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  all been bored. And maybe you're bored right now. I hope you're not
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  bored right now. Maybe you are. So what is God's purpose in our
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  boredom? The question John Viper has never taken up to consider. Well,
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  that ends next time, because you all ask very incredibly thoughtful questions God's purpose
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  in our boredom? See Monday,