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Piper, Did You Miss Something? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Did you miss something, Pastor John, something about how we
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  Speaker 1: should rejoice in our salvation, not only in the God
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  Speaker 1: who saves us. That's the question today. Tomorrow we read
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  Speaker 1: Psalm nine together in our Bible reading, and in Psalm
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  Speaker 1: nine fourteen we read this plea, let me rejoice in
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  Speaker 1: your salvation. That text and others about rejoicing in the
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  Speaker 1: gift of our salvation comes to you in the form
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  Speaker 1: of a pushback from a listener and reader named Matt
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  Speaker 1: who lives in Savannah, Georgia. Pastor John Hello, in one
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  Speaker 1: of my all time favorite books, God is the Gospel.
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  Speaker 1: You write that quote, God himself is the highest, best, final,
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  Speaker 1: decisive good of the Gospel. Thus, the Gospel is not
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  Speaker 1: merely about gifts or blessings, but the best and final
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  Speaker 1: gift of God's love, the enjoyment of God. It's beauty
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  Speaker 1: and all encompassing gift, calling us to see and savor
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  Speaker 1: the glory of Christ forever above all other gifts. The
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  Speaker 1: gift must be God himself, you say, because without this quote,
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  Speaker 1: God is not the greatest treasure quote, and the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: no longer is truly good news. And Yet, and here's
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  Speaker 1: my question. The Bible clearly calls us to rejoice in
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  Speaker 1: our salvation in five specific places, and none of them
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  Speaker 1: appear in your book. I don't think my heart shall
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  Speaker 1: rejoice in your salvation that Psalm thirteen to five. May
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  Speaker 1: all who love your salvation continually say the Lord be
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  Speaker 1: magnified that Psalm forty or sixteen. Let me rejoice in
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  Speaker 1: your salvation Psalm nine fourteen. Again with joy you will
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  Speaker 1: draw water from the wells of salvation as Isaiaht twelve three.
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  Speaker 1: And I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul
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  Speaker 1: shall exult in my God. For He has clothed me
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  Speaker 1: with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with
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  Speaker 1: the robe of righteousness, Saysaiah sixty one ten. So how
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  Speaker 1: do we hold fast to God as the highest, best
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  Speaker 1: and final good of the Gospel without failing to love
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  Speaker 1: and rejoice deeply and continually in the garments of our salvation? Two?
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  Speaker 1: How do we avoid using justification or the cross merely
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  Speaker 1: as a booster rocket for initial spiritual momentum that later
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  Speaker 1: falls off as unnecessary because we have God himself, And
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  Speaker 1: then we never think of our salvation again. That is
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  Speaker 1: my fear.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you Matt for drawing attention to these words, namely
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  Speaker 2: that we should indeed rejoice in God's salvation. We should,
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  Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, which I would take to include. Rejoice
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  Speaker 2: in His incarnation, Rejoice in his two natures in one person.
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  Speaker 2: Rejoice in redemption on the cross. Rejoice in his propitiating
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  Speaker 2: the wrath of God. Rejoice in our justification by faith.
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  Speaker 2: Rejoice in adoption into God's family. Rejoice in the Holy
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  Speaker 2: Spirit's work in our lives and sanctification. Rejoice in His
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  Speaker 2: preserving us for the last day. Oh, my goodness, we
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  Speaker 2: sing that he will hold me fast, He will hold
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  Speaker 2: me fast. How can we? How can we not rejoice
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  Speaker 2: in the saving work of God from beginning to end? So, yes, yes, yes,
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  Speaker 2: let us rejoice in our salvation. So I wish I
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  Speaker 2: had quoted all those texts in my book Desiring God.
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  Speaker 1: And you said I didn't.
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  Speaker 2: I take your word for it. I didn't check.
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  Speaker 1: Well, And God is the Gospel. God is the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: as the book. It's a shorter one. Yeah, So I
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  Speaker 1: can see why they wouldn't fit in God as the Gospel.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not sure I did in Desiring God either.
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  Speaker 2: So I want to I want to just admit it okay,
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  Speaker 2: Like like I haven't. I haven't drawn attention to these texts.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think maybe I have somewhere. And the point is,
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  Speaker 2: how does our stress, this is the question on God.
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  Speaker 2: How's their stress on God himself as our final and
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  Speaker 2: ultimate joy, relate to these other joys in such a
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  Speaker 2: way that we don't in any way belittle or nullify
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  Speaker 2: the preciousness of God's work of salvation. That's the fundamental
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  Speaker 2: question that he's asking, and it's a super good one.
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  Speaker 2: I don't feel too bad about not addressing it in
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  Speaker 2: God is the Gospel because in Desiring God one sixty
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  Speaker 2: seven to one seventy, I do deal with this question.
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  Speaker 2: How does joy in God himself relate to joy in
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  Speaker 2: God's gifts? That's the question. It's a huge issue because
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  Speaker 2: not only are we told in the Bible to rejoice
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  Speaker 2: in our self salvation, as you pointed out, we are
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  Speaker 2: told to rejoice in every created good thing for Timothy
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  Speaker 2: six seventeen. We're told to rejoice in God's people Philippines.
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  Speaker 2: For one, we're told to rejoice in our wives. Rejoice
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  Speaker 2: in the wife of your youth. Let her breasts fill
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  Speaker 2: you at all times with delight, be intoxicated with her love.
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  Speaker 2: We are told to rejoice in God's law, God's works,
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  Speaker 2: God's righteousness, God's goodness. We are told to rejoice in
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  Speaker 2: hope and that our names are written in heaven. We're
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  Speaker 2: told to rejoice in suffering. And the list goes on
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  Speaker 2: and on. It is impossible to think biblically and take
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  Speaker 2: rejoicing in God to mean don't find any joy anywhere else.
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  Speaker 2: That's just not possible, except He's like, that's what the
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  Speaker 2: Bible says in Psalm seventy three twenty five, whom have
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  Speaker 2: I in heaven but you? There's nothing on earth I
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  Speaker 2: desire besides you? Or Psalm twenty seven to four. One
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  Speaker 2: thing have I asked of the Lord? And that will
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  Speaker 2: I seek? After that I may dwell in the house
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  Speaker 2: of the Lord all the days of my life, to
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  Speaker 2: gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. So how do
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  Speaker 2: we solve the tension between desiring God alone with no
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  Speaker 2: competitors on the one hand, and delighting in His salvation
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  Speaker 2: and his creation on the other hand, Because both are
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  Speaker 2: in the Bible. In fact, in Psalm sixteen two and three,
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  Speaker 2: they're back to back. Is not as though one part
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  Speaker 2: of the Bible says one thing, and one part of
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  Speaker 2: the Bible says another thing. That's not the case. It's
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  Speaker 2: the same part of the Bible, same authors, same verses.
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  Speaker 2: Listen to Psalm sixteen to two. I say to the
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  Speaker 2: Lord you are my Lord. I have no good apart
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  Speaker 2: from you. Here's the next verse. As for the saints
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  Speaker 2: in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom
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  Speaker 2: is all my delight? Are you kidding me? That's not gobbledegook.
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  Speaker 2: Come on, that's not gobbledegook. That's not double speak, that's
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  Speaker 2: not contradiction. That's God's holy word. And that's what these
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  Speaker 2: pages in Desiring God one seven to seventy one seventy
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  Speaker 2: are aur about. So what's the solution? Lots of people
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  Speaker 2: have wrestled with us over the years. I quote Augustine,
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  Speaker 2: I quote the seventeenth century poet Thomas Tarhearn, I quote C. S. Lewis.
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  Speaker 2: For example, Thomas Tarhearn says, you never enjoy the world
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  Speaker 2: aright till you see how a grain of sand exhibits
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  Speaker 2: the wisdom and power of God and prize in everything
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  Speaker 2: the service which they do you by manifesting His glory
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  Speaker 2: and goodness to your soul, And Augustine says, he loves
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  Speaker 2: thee too, little God who loves anything together with thee
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  Speaker 2: which he loves, not for thy sake. That's so helpful.
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  Speaker 2: So I think there are two features of our rejoicing
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  Speaker 2: in salvation and creation that prevent that rejoicing from being
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  Speaker 2: a dishonor to God as our supreme delight and satisfaction. First,
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  Speaker 2: we must delight in God above all other realities. We
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  Speaker 2: must prefer Him over his gifts. But secondly we must
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  Speaker 2: taste the excellence of God in his gifts. His gifts
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  Speaker 2: are not simply potential competitors with himself. They are means
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  Speaker 2: by which a creature knows something thing of God. This
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  Speaker 2: is true, true of his gifts of salvation, true of
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  Speaker 2: his gifts of creation. P. Nineteen says that the heavens
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  Speaker 2: are telling the glory of God. Therefore we will enjoy
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  Speaker 2: the starlit sky at night properly when that enjoyment is
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  Speaker 2: also an enjoyment of the glory of God revealed in
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  Speaker 2: the heavens. A God ignoring enjoyment of the galaxies is idolatry,
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  Speaker 2: but a God entranced enjoyment of the galaxies is true
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  Speaker 2: worship of the God of creation, and the same is
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  Speaker 2: true for the works of salvation. Works of salvation are
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  Speaker 2: a revelation of God, his nature, his character, is being,
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  Speaker 2: and we can see this in the way Paul talks
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  Speaker 2: in Romans fifteen eight and nine. He says Christ became
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  Speaker 2: a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness verse nine,
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  Speaker 2: and in order that the gentiles might glorify God for
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  Speaker 2: his mercy. So the point is Christ came into the
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  Speaker 2: world to show God's truthfulness and to show God's mercy,
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  Speaker 2: and Paul says he did that in order that we
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  Speaker 2: might go through the truthfulness, through the mercy and glorify
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  Speaker 2: God himself for his mercy and for his truthfulness. The
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  Speaker 2: gifts of God's truthfulness and mercy are meant to lead
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  Speaker 2: us to the enjoyment of His glory. And yes, it
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  Speaker 2: would not be wrong to say that they are beams
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  Speaker 2: or rays streaming out from the sun of God's glory.
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  Speaker 2: So that to enjoy his mercy rightly is to enjoy
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  Speaker 2: Him as the merciful God. And to enjoy his truthfulness
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  Speaker 2: rightly is to enjoy him the truthful God. So my
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  Speaker 2: conclusion is that if God's works of creation and salvation
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  Speaker 2: are enjoyed as gifts of God and as manifestations of
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  Speaker 2: His glory, then that enjoyment is not idolatry as long
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  Speaker 2: as our delight in his works is also and supremely
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  Speaker 2: a delight in God.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, we can and we should rejoice in God's salvation
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  Speaker 1: if our delight in that salvation serves as a pathway
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  Speaker 1: to supremely delighting in God himself, who reveals himself in
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  Speaker 1: that gift of salvation. Amen. Well, Desiring God the book
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  Speaker 1: is honor minds because it has just been released in
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  Speaker 1: a final definitive edition from Crossway abut full new printing
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  Speaker 1: of a final edition and one. I know a lot
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  Speaker 1: of you are reading for the first time or reading
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  Speaker 1: again because there are just a number of questions coming
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  Speaker 1: in in the inbox about it. So read Desiring God
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  Speaker 1: the Book and then also read God as the Gospel.
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  Speaker 1: If you haven't read that one, oh, you're missing out.
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  Speaker 1: It's Matt's favorite, one of Matt's favorite books all time.
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  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite books of all time. If
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  Speaker 1: you haven't read it, you're missing out. Well. If you
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  Speaker 1: lift your hands in church during musical worship. Aren't you
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  Speaker 1: just showing off, acting all spiritual for other people to see,
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  Speaker 1: doing the exact thing Jesus told us not to do.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe not how to tell the difference Next time,
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Rank. Will see you on Monday.