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Seven Ways to Break Free from Misplaced Hope · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, there are a bunch of end of life questions
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  Speaker 1: that have been asked and answered on the podcast over
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  Speaker 1: the years, episodes I tried to catalog in the APJ book,
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  Speaker 1: fittingly at the very end of the book, on pages
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  Speaker 1: four forty one to four forty nine. In fact, it's
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  Speaker 1: the question, how do I know if I'm ready for heaven?
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  Speaker 1: That's how the whole book ends, How do I know
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  Speaker 1: I'm ready for Heaven? I intentionally wanted to end with
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  Speaker 1: that question and that episode because it is one of
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  Speaker 1: my favorites ever on the podcast. Meditating on heaven is
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  Speaker 1: so important for us as a discipline we need. I
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  Speaker 1: remember the late great J. I. Packer once telling me
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  Speaker 1: and a few friends that were with me that he
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  Speaker 1: made it a common practice to walk the streets of
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  Speaker 1: his neighborhood in Vancouver, just to meditate on the glories
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  Speaker 1: of heaven. Amazing. Well, he's there now along with his wife,
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  Speaker 1: in the joyful presence of our Savior. But I feel
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  Speaker 1: like a younger generation myself still needs to reclaim this
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  Speaker 1: practice or something like it. And well, that relates to
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  Speaker 1: a question today from an anonymous young woman. Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: When I think about going to heaven. One day, I
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  Speaker 1: get most excited about seeing my parents, grandparents, and possibly pets.
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  Speaker 1: I know this is wrong. I should be most excited
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  Speaker 1: about seeing Jesus. What do I need to confess and
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  Speaker 1: how do I overcome this? Thank you?
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  Speaker 2: I have six, No, seven, I think I have seven
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  Speaker 2: practical suggestions that I hope will move you beyond this
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  Speaker 2: condition of loving parents more than Christ. Now, someone might
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  Speaker 2: object right here and say, we wait a minute. She
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  Speaker 2: didn't say that. She didn't say she loved her parents
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  Speaker 2: more than Christ. She said she was more excited about
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  Speaker 2: seeing them than she is about seeing Christ. Well, there
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  Speaker 2: might be something to that objection to me, but I
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  Speaker 2: doubt it because I think loving Christ more than we
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  Speaker 2: love our parents includes being more excited to see Him
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  Speaker 2: than we are to see them. I think the effort
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  Speaker 2: to interpret love for Christ so that it does not
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  Speaker 2: include things like the intense desire to see him is futile.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think you can define love for Christ with
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  Speaker 2: that kind of limitation. When Paul says that we will
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  Speaker 2: receive the crown of righteousness if we love Christ's appearing,
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  Speaker 2: that does not mean find it or undesirable. It means
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  Speaker 2: we're excited about the prospect of his coming. Is our
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  Speaker 2: desire strong? Do we want him his presence more than
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  Speaker 2: we want life to go on as it is with
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  Speaker 2: all of our present pleasant relationships. That's what he's saying.
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  Speaker 2: So here are my seven practical suggestions. Number one, do
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  Speaker 2: a very sincere, earnest assessment of your own heart to
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  Speaker 2: see if you really mean what you say. Love for
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  Speaker 2: Jesus has many components. One of them would be being
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  Speaker 2: excited to see him and be with him. Others would
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  Speaker 2: include things like admiration for him for his greatness, wisdom, strength, goodness, beauty.
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  Speaker 2: His eternal nature is never coming into being, his love
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  Speaker 2: demonstrated in the price he paid and gift he bought,
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  Speaker 2: and how undeserving we are to receive it. The personal
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  Speaker 2: affections of the heart that a person has for Christ
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  Speaker 2: are very varied. The emotional resonance that each of these
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  Speaker 2: excellencies of Christ find in our heart are different from
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  Speaker 2: each other. They're not all the same sense of excitement,
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  Speaker 2: and it may be that you are selling yourself short
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  Speaker 2: in not taking stock of some of the genuine affections
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  Speaker 2: for Christ that may be there in your heart, which
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  Speaker 2: are in fact just as or more intense than what
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  Speaker 2: you feel for your parents. So that's the first suggestion
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  Speaker 2: I have is I don't want to be too hard
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  Speaker 2: on you and say you know your heart well enough
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  Speaker 2: to say everything you do love my parents more than
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  Speaker 2: I love Christ. Do a very serious self assessment to
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  Speaker 2: read your own heart accurately. That's number one. Number two,
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  Speaker 2: perhaps be shocked and sobered by the fact that you
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  Speaker 2: may be in more trouble than you think you are.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just wrong to prefer something more than Jesus,
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  Speaker 2: it's damnable. Jesus said in Matthew ten thirty seven, whoever
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  Speaker 2: loves father or mother more than me is not worthy
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  Speaker 2: of me, And whoever loves son or daughter more than
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  Speaker 2: me is not worthy of me. So Jesus does two
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  Speaker 2: things in that verse. He clarifies the kind of love
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  Speaker 2: he has in mind, namely the kind of love we
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  Speaker 2: feel for our most precious relationships. In other words, the
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  Speaker 2: love he requires is not simply some stoic, self denying dedication,
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  Speaker 2: but rather the same kind of affections we feel for
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  Speaker 2: our parents and our children. And the second thing he
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  Speaker 2: does in that verse ten Matthew ten thirty seven is
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  Speaker 2: point out that the complete absence of the kind of
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  Speaker 2: supreme affection he demands means we're not Christians, we're not saved,
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  Speaker 2: we're not going to heaven. Not to be worthy of Jesus,
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  Speaker 2: which is what he says, you're not worthy of me.
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  Speaker 2: Doesn't mean that we don't deserve Jesus. Nobody deserves Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: It means it's not fitting that we should be considered
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  Speaker 2: his disciples. So don't think that you are dealing with
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  Speaker 2: a minor problem of your emotional life of excitement. You're
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  Speaker 2: dealing with life and death problem of whether you are
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  Speaker 2: a Christian. Number three, and this may soften the previous
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  Speaker 2: point a little. We'll see realize that as a Christian,
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  Speaker 2: your genuine spiritual affections are variable, which means they can
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  Speaker 2: grow and become stronger, and they can decay and become weaker.
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  Speaker 2: Tewond Tassonian's one to three refers to our faith in
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  Speaker 2: Christ as growing, which I think implies that our love
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  Speaker 2: for Christ can grow. We all know that the intensity
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  Speaker 2: of our faith and our love rises and falls in
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  Speaker 2: various circumstances of life. That's why Paul speaks of fighting
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  Speaker 2: the good fight of faith, and the same can be
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  Speaker 2: said of love. We fight to maintain our love for Christ.
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  Speaker 2: The world is always attempting to capture the affections of
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  Speaker 2: our heart. That's why one John two sixteen warns us
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  Speaker 2: love not the world, and that's everything created. The reason
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  Speaker 2: I said this realization might soften the previous point is
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  Speaker 2: that I don't want you on the days when you
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  Speaker 2: find your love for Christ's weakening. I don't want you
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  Speaker 2: to conclude you're not a Christian. We have all been there,
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  Speaker 2: our affections rise and fall. The response of those days
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  Speaker 2: is not to conclude you're not a Christian, but to
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  Speaker 2: prove you are a Christian by putting to death what
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  Speaker 2: is earthly in you and fighting for a fresh, greater
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  Speaker 2: taste of the preciousness of Christ and the rising of
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  Speaker 2: your affections in Him. That's real life. Number four, Pray
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  Speaker 2: earnestly day and night that gel would open your eyes,
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  Speaker 2: that you would see the beauty of Christ, and how
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  Speaker 2: desirable he is, and how superior he is to your
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  Speaker 2: parents or your children in every way that should excite
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  Speaker 2: your affections. This is the way the Psalmist prayed. This
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  Speaker 2: is the battle he fought Psalm one nineteen. Open my
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  Speaker 2: eyes that I can see the wonders of God, the
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  Speaker 2: wonders of the Word, the wonders of Christ. It's the
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  Speaker 2: way Paul prayed in the Pheasans one eighteen. I pray
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  Speaker 2: that the eyes of your hearts would be enlightened, that
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  Speaker 2: you may know what's the hope and the inheritance and
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  Speaker 2: the power at work within us. These are all part
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  Speaker 2: of the glory of Christ. And even Christians need to
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  Speaker 2: pray regularly that we would see that our eyes and
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  Speaker 2: our hearts would see Christ and the glories of Christ
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  Speaker 2: more clearly, and how supremely desirable they are. Number five,
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  Speaker 2: most of all, look intently and steadfastly and earnestly at Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: We do this by looking through his word two Corinthians
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  Speaker 2: three eighteen. So important we all, with unveiled face behold
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  Speaker 2: the glory of the Lord. We are being transformed into
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  Speaker 2: the same image. Hebrews three one. Consider Jesus, the apostle
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  Speaker 2: and high priest of our confession. Hebrews twelve three. Consider
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  Speaker 2: him who endured from sinners such hostility. Behold him, consider him,
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  Speaker 2: Consider him. This is our daily bread. Right, this is
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  Speaker 2: what you do. Men shall not live by bread alone,
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  Speaker 2: but by every word, because the word reveals Christ, and
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  Speaker 2: Christ is supremely desirable above parents and children. That's what
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  Speaker 2: sustains our faith and our love. The only way to
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  Speaker 2: savor Christ as we ought is to see Him as
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  Speaker 2: we ought. Number six. Use good sermons and books to
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  Speaker 2: help you do this. Jonathan Edwards Sermon The Excellency of Christ,
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  Speaker 2: John Bunyan's All Loves Excelling, John Owen The Glory of Christ.
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  Speaker 2: All three of those. Just type them into Google and
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  Speaker 2: you can read them online. You don't even have to
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  Speaker 2: buy them. Dane Ortland's Gentle and Lowly. Number seven. Finally,
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  Speaker 2: be among people who cherish Christ above all. It's contagious.
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  Speaker 2: That's what churches are. Four. I pray that God will
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  Speaker 2: use these seven suggestions to deepen and confirm your love
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  Speaker 2: for Christ. Maybe I'll throw in one more sorry. One
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  Speaker 2: of Christ's beauty's is that when you love him above
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  Speaker 2: his gifts, you get the gifts thrown in. But if
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  Speaker 2: you love his gifts above him, you lose both.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the gift giver is the gift. The gift giver
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  Speaker 1: is the gift. If you've never read Pastor John's book
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  Speaker 1: God Is the Gospel, you really should it is a
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  Speaker 1: phenomenal paradigm upending book. God is the Gospel, and interestingly,
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  Speaker 1: to me at least, these same Bible texts mentioned here
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  Speaker 1: in today's episode come up whenever we talk about entertainment
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  Speaker 1: culture as well. We need a culture wide revival. The
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  Speaker 1: whole culture needs revival, and we need an awakening inside
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  Speaker 1: of ourselves, and the world's entertainment won't bring that about,
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  Speaker 1: not for culture, not for us. Same text, similar challenge
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  Speaker 1: misplaced hope in heaven and the dangers of falling into
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  Speaker 1: the trap of entertainment culture, two challenges addressed by the
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  Speaker 1: same Bible texts as you'll see in the APJA book
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  Speaker 1: on pages three oh two and three oho three. If
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  Speaker 1: you have it a handy, Thank you, Pastor John, and
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  Speaker 1: thanks for joining us today. If you have a question
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  Speaker 1: to ask Pastor John, find a link to email us
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  Speaker 1: at askcrest John dot com. Speaking of cultural traps, to
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  Speaker 1: live in the West is to be plunged into a
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  Speaker 1: world that is infatuated with wealth and status and money
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  Speaker 1: and greed and gambling and luxury, which is why we
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  Speaker 1: spend so much time talking about money and shopping in
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  Speaker 1: the Prosperity Gospel, and what it means to live a
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  Speaker 1: wartime lifestyle in the midst of such a money loving
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  Speaker 1: world all around us perennial topics up back and next time,
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Ranky. Will see you on Thursday.