Tag Archives: love

The Logic of God’s Love

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John Piper says it’s almost too good to believe. Hear Zephaniah’s words:

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17 is an absolutely magnificent promise that is meant to make us feel God’s joy. Like when the father ran to embrace his prodigal son, some scenes in Scripture are especially meant to astonish us with mercy.

But not everyone can bring themselves to believe God’s love for us is that powerful. Though, as Pastor John writes, Zephaniah wants to help us get it:

[Zephaniah] labors under the wonderful inspiration of God to overcome every obstacle that would keep a person from believing — really feeling and enjoying — the unspeakable news that God exults over us with singing. (178)

But there are many who struggle, and you might be one. In chapter seven of The Pleasures of God John Piper sketches a hypothetical dialogue between a one who struggles and the rationale of Zephaniah. He speaks for Zephaniah and interacts with the potential inhibitions that keep us from believing in God’s love. It goes like this:

A Dialogue with the Logic of Zephaniah1

“Can you feel the wonder of this today — that God is rejoicing over you with loud singing?”

“No, I can’t, because I am too guilty. I am unworthy. My sin is too great, and the judgments against me are too many. God could never rejoice over me.”

“But consider Zephaniah 3:15. God foresees your hesitancy. He understands. So his prophet says, ‘The Lord has taken away the judgments against you!’ Can you not feel the wonder that the Lord exults over you with loud singing today, even though you have sinned? Can you not feel that the condemnation has been lifted because he bruised his own Son in your place, if you will only believe?”

“No, I can’t, because I am surrounded by enemies. Obstacles press me in on every side. There are people who never let me believe this. There are people at work who would make my life miserable if God were my treasure. There are people in my family who would ostracize me. I have friends who would do everything to drag me down. I could never go on believing. I would have too many enemies. The oppression would be too much to bear, I could never do it.”

“But consider Zephaniah 3:17, ‘The Lord is a warrior who gives victory’; and verse 19, ‘Behold, at that time I will deal with your oppressors [says the Lord]’; and verse 15, ‘He has cast out your enemies.’ Can you feel the wonder that God is doing everything that needs to be done for you to enjoy his own enjoyment of you? Can you see that the enemies and the oppressors are not too strong for God? Nothing can stop him, when he exults over you with loud singing. Can you feel the wonder of it now? Can you believe that he rejoices over you?”

“No, still I can’t, because he is a great and holy God and I feel like he is far away from me. I am very small. I am a nobody. The world is a huge place with many important people. There are major movements and institutions that he is concerned with and happy about. I am too small. God is like the president. He is far away in Washington, busy with big things.”

“But consider Zephaniah 3:15, ‘The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst’; and verse 17: ‘The Lord, your God, is in your midst.’ He is not far from you. Yes, I admit that this staggers the imagination and stretches credibility almost to the breaking point — that God can be present personally to everyone who comes to him and believes on him. But say to yourself, again and again, He is God! He is God! What shall stop God from being close to me if he wants to be close to me? He is God! He is God! The very greatness that makes him seem too far to be near, is the greatness that enables him to do whatever he pleases, including being near to me. Has he not said, for this very reason, ‘I dwell in a high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit’ (Isaiah 57:15)? Can you not then feel the marvel that God makes merry over you — even with loud singing — when you come to him and believe him?”

“But no, you just don’t understand. I am the victim and the slave of shame. I have been endlessly belittled by my parents (see Zephaniah 2:8, 10). I have been scoffed at and threatened and manipulated and slandered. Inside this cocoon of shame even the singing of God sounds faint and far away and indecipherable. It is as though my shame has made me deaf to anyone’s happiness with me, especially God’s. I cannot feel it.”

“Now I am sure I do not feel all that you feel. I have not been through what you have been through. But God is no stranger to shame. Unbelievable shame was heaped on his Son (Hebrews 12:2), terrible slander, repeated belittling, even from his own townsfolk (Matthew 13:55–58). Therefore, ‘We do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses’ (Hebrews 4–15). I know I have never walked in your shoes. I did not have to live with the family you lived with. But Jesus knows. He feels it with you. And best of all, his Father says right here in Zephaniah 3:19, ‘I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.’ Is it not amazing how well God knows you? Can you not feel the warmth of his heart as he makes provision for every question you have? Do you not yet hear the singing of God as you draw near?”

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1This is adapted from The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God, 1991, (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2012), 179–180.

Read the original post at the DG blog: How Zephaniah Helps Us Feel the Glad Love of God

Putting the “Christian” in Christian Friendship

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Is there anything distinctive about Christian friendship? What’s different about how two fellow followers of Jesus relate to each other, compared with two friends who don’t identify with Christ? Romans 15:2 helps us consider one essential component of what puts the Christian into Christian relationships.

“Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”

Who Is Our “Neighbor”?

“Neighbor” can be used very broadly (as Jesus does in Luke 10:29), but in this case, Paul is plainly talking about fellow believers (as he does in Ephesians 4:25). This is confirmed in the verb “to build up” — a word which Paul reserves exclusively for the church. We’re talking about Christians here in Romans 15:2 — Christian neighbors, fellow followers of Jesus with whom we share some proximity. So we could say this text carries significance for Christian friendship.

And the imperative is to “please” them, to accommodate them, to make their welfare of higher interest than our own. To please our Christian neighbor is to serve them. Undoubtedly, this will be for our own joy — no one is really served when it’s done in stiff reluctance. But it being for our joy doesn’t mean it’s always (or often!) comfortable. Pleasing our neighbor will take sacrifice. It’s not typically easy — it’s “not to please ourselves.” We’re giving something up for something better and that better is the building up of our brother or sister.

Sacrificially Build Up One Another

The sacrificial building up of one another — this is what makes Christian friendship, well, Christian. It’s Christian both in the adjective (sacrificial) and in the verb (building up).

Sacrificial building up (“not to please ourselves”) means it’s Christian in its manner. The foundation to our serving, our sacrificial edifying of others, is rooted in the example of Jesus. We’re to have the Philippians 6:6–8 mind among ourselves. He didn’t give prominence to his own comfort when he “left glory.” Nor when he prayed in the Garden. It wasn’t easy when he bore our sins and suffered the wrath we deserved. Yet even in the midst of the pain, there was a joy set before him. It wasn’t easy, but it was glorious. And when we walk in that example, it works the same way (1 Peter 2:21). It shocks the world — for the glory of God.

But this sacrificial building up is not only Christian in its manner. It’s also Christian in its goal. The friendship goes beyond discussing the latest scores (though it may involve that), or the newest app (though that may be a part, too), or the best book we’ve read (another good one). The purpose is to build them up. This is what the pleasing is about, for their good. It’s about their conformity to Jesus. Our little place in their life is to serve the goal to which God has elected them, Jesus has died, and the Spirit is working. We want to build them up.

For Your Friends

Now then, let each of us, by grace, please our neighbor for their good — count them more significant than ourselves, and their needs more pertinent than our own; to build them up — play the God-ordained role of a means of grace in their lives, investing in their transformation into the likeness of Jesus. Let’s stir this Christian intentionality in our relationships — that we not seek to please ourselves, but that we pursue the pleasing of our neighbor for their good in Jesus.

Read the original post at DG.

Really Glad About This Article

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I’m pretty excited about this new resource just added to DG’s Resource Library. It’s excellent content that has been inaccessible on the web. The process to get this up included transcribing the original document into electronic format (contracted out), translating it into HTML (including the 72 hyperlinked footnotes), inserting the images for the content that’s irreproducible otherwise.

Here’s the post. Below’s the body copy…

________

If you want to understand the message of 1 Peter,
or how hope in God’s grace affects our command to love,
or if you just want to see a lucid example of careful exegetical method. . .

let me commend to you John Piper’s 1980 article for Cambridge’s New Testament Studies: “Hope as the Motivation of Love: 1 Peter 3:9–12.”

A new web version has just been added to our Resource Library, full of the original British –ours, German lines, Greek inserts, and 72 footnotes (now hyperlinked).

Read the full article.

Here’s a snapshot of the work:

Method

In the long run it is the mutually correcting interaction between detailed analyses of particular texts (at the risk of conceptual myopia) and more general syntheses of an author’s total thought (at the risk of superficiality) which will yield the most balanced and true picture of how he may conceive of ethical motivation (or anything else).

Outline

  1. Introduction: the problem at hand
  2. The motif of hope as it’s grounded in the work of Christ and functions to motivate Christian behavior.
  3. 1 Peter 3:9–12 considered in detail.
  4. The conclusion as a result of points 2 and 3: general synthesis of the author’s thought and detailed analysis of a paritcular text.

Conclusion

Rather, when we hold the two parts together [points 2 and 3 above] a more balanced and true picture emerges of how 1 Peter aims to motivate enemy–love. . . .

Instead (taking the whole message of 1 Peter into account) we will recognize in our own ill will a failure to “hope fully” in the grace of Christ (1:13) who by bearing our own sins in his body (2:24) has brought us home to God (3:18) — our faithful creator (4:19). We will admit that not legalistic moral effort but a change of heart is demanded. To that end we will “be sober unto prayer” (4:7), and girding up our minds (1:13) will direct our attention to the reality of the Lord’s kindness in the living word (2:2, 3; 1:23). Thus by the grace of God we may experience a renewal of hope so that in all sincerity and earnestness (1:22) we can speak and act toward our enemy from a hopeful, humble and loving heart that truly desires his blessedness.

Worse Than 450 Bleeding Prophets of Baal

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1 Kings 18 moves me. It’s almost like your there on Mount Carmel, watching this whole thing take place. And most of the time you spend watching the showdown isn’t of the Lord‘s great answer to Elijah. The fire from heaven, the offering consumed, the people on their faces — this didn’t take that long. It wasn’t dragged out. It was short and explosive.

Most of your time is spent watching these prophets of Baal. These poor prophets of Baal. It is a sad sight. These guys are mutilating their bodies just to get a peep from their god.

Hours go by.

Hours.

And there’s nothing. Not a word. . . .

And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:28–29)

450 prophets of Baal, weeping and pleading, wounds all over their bodies, blood gushing out, exhausted and limping around an altar, hoping for Baal to show himself. Could it ever get any more gruesome that this? Imagine it. Seriously. Could there ever be a scene more horrible than this?

Yes.

The only scene more gruesome than a crowd of people limping around an altar, wounded all over their body with blood gushing out, begging to see a god who doesn’t exist is this: the true God of the universe hanging on a cross, wounded all over his body with blood gushing out, showing his love to a people who don’t care.

The prophets of Baal begged their god,  “Answer us!” “Say something!” “At least a gesture!” “Please, anything!”

And the true God showed his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. We didn’t ask him for that. We were sinners who didn’t care anything about God, we worshipped ourselves, we were dead in our sins. And it was precisely then that God showed himself. It was while we were still weak, at the right time, that Christ died for the ungodly.

Praise him.

[This post is adapted from an earlier version at the Desiring God blog]

‘Blast from the Past’ Email Fun — May 2006

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A few days ago Melissa started digging up some old emails we exchanged while we were dating. Thanks to Gmail we can do this sort of thing, going back to May 2006. I don’t remember the context. From what I gather we had been in some sort of argument. Melissa thinks it’s funny I included the editorial “p.s.” . . .

Melissa Cockrell

I am so sorry for being a punk lately.  I know I have been a “nagging, contemptuous” woman.  I know I need to learn to trust God in every area of my life instead of picking and choosing what I want to trust Him with. . . . I am thankful I have a boyfriend who is Christ-centered and prays to live for none other than God’s glory.  I have been praying for you.

Your sweet, loving, adorable girlfriend (as of right now;) j/k, i hope

Phil. 1:21,

Jonathan Parnell

Hey sweetheart.  I just pray that God will continue to grow us closer to Him, and closer to one another.  I think it would be great for us to be spent for the gospel together.

In Christ alone is our all,

p.s. it is “contentious”  :)   you are wonderful

Melissa, Me, Love, Cardinals, Marriage, Family

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The 2006 World Series was great. It was the first time in my life that I got to see the Cardinals win, and it happened to be simultaneous to Melissa and I moving closer to engagement. I had the ring, just waiting for the perfect timing.

I proposed the day after the Cardinals won the Series…

Five years later we get to celebrate their championship with three more little Cardinals.

Melissa, Go Cards!

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The St. Louis Cardinals squeezed into the playoffs with an amazing finish to the regular season. We’re pretty excited about it here at the house. And I can’t help but reminisce the 2006 season when we claimed the World Series for the first time since ’82.

The World Series was just the icing on the cake to that great October of 2006. My heart had already purposed a proposal to Melissa. We cheered on the Cardinals together. I organized my entire schedule around their games, studying early and finishing homework in record speed. Since my friends and I didn’t have a TV in our apartment Melissa and I had to plan dates out to watch the games. It was a bliss of baseball and love. I popped the question the day after the Cardinals won. She said yes.

Melissa, I love you. I’m looking forward to this postseason, and many more. Go Cards!

Luther’s Counsel to the Sick and Dying

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Luther’s Letters of Spiritual Counsel, ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert, 1960, (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2003)

The strength of Luther’s counsel is his blending of personal sincerity and Christ-centered encouragement. This ethos of gospel ministry follows the example of the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, “… we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves.” This Apostolic example is seen in the interweaving of Luther’s sincere, personal concern for the sick and his robust articulation of Jesus’ work on the behalf of the sick. I think that this strength gives way to contemporary application.

We learn from Luther, who follows the example of Paul (cf. Phil. 3:17), that a mere theological mind is insufficient in pastoral care. We must share “not only the gospel but also our own selves.” What the sick need more than anything is to be reminded of Jesus’ victory, yet the exposition of that victory should be packaged in the demeanor of a forgiven sinner who is bound in love for his neighbor (Matt. 22:39). And more than our neighbor, we love those in the household of faith (Gal. 6:10), and we love the message of the gospel. Our love for the gospel is translated into a burden for it to be known and believed. It’s content is so precious to us that we sincerely (and personally) commend it to others. We are compelled by these affections to honor both the person and the message they need to hear. We come to the sick and dying in an authenticity that says, “I am your brother. I love you very much and I have good news for you.”

It is hard to assess weaknesses in Luther’s letters per se, or in his counseling approach. In every counseling circumstance there are always more and less of what we could say. The cultural mindset towards sickness and physical suffering has changed since Luther’s day because of the advancement of medicine. Sickness was part of their reality and therefore didn’t require a robust theodicy. Due to his context, I think Luther’s theodicy is underdeveloped. He made mention of life’s fragility: “None of us is, or should be, sure of his life at any time” (30). And he mentions the curse of sin: “This life, cursed by sin, is nothing but a vale of tears” (32). Also, God’s will: “[Luther] acknowledges that the illness, sent upon him by the will of God…” (36). Contemporary counsel would seem to require more of an explanation about God’s goodness and sovereignty in the midst of sickness. The question is simply more prevalent today than it was in Luther’s.

Personal sincerity and Christ-centered encouragement are the major themes of Luther’s counsel to the sick and dying. Contemporary pastors would do well to follow his example as he as followed the Apostle Paul.

What Does It Mean When God Isn’t Clear?

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Jon Bloom writes,

It means that God has a design in the difficulty of discerning. The motives and affections of our hearts, or “renewed minds,” are more clearly revealed in such decision making.

If God made more things explicit, we would tend to focus more on what we do rather than what we love. Like Pharisees, we would tend to whitewash our tombs with the appearance of obedience — to impress others — rather than deal with the dead bones of our self-righteous pride.

But in decisions that require discernment, the wheat is distinguished from the tares. We make such decisions based on what we really love. If deep down we love the world, this will become apparent in the pattern of decisions that we make — we will conform to this world.

But if we really love Jesus we will increasingly love what he loves — we will be transformed by renewed minds. And our love for him and his kingdom will be revealed in the pattern of small and large decisions that we make.

Read the whole post, When God’s Will Isn’t Clear.