These are my notes from John Piper’s lecture tonight at the Together for the Gospel conference. It was hard to get down everything, partly because his message was so rich and dense in its detail and partly because I had to keep wiping away tears.
At the risk of being melodramatic, I would encourage you, I would beg you, to order a MP3 of this message when it later becomes available. Written words cannot convey even a fraction of the blazing fire of hearing Piper’s oratory; you will without doubt be blessed by hearing it.
After it Mohler said, “What John did tonight, the passion he displayed, is something most Christians will never see.” Duncan said, “After tonight, I wondered if I ever preached a sermon before.” Yes, it really was that good.
John started with a famous quote of George Whitfield, which he said was his desire and prayer as well:
My desire is that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more bring into being His special instruments of revival, that He will again raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambi-tions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labour and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat.
1. Reflections on the Kind of Preaching that God Would Raise Up That Feels the Weight of God’s Glory
Preaching is not conversation or teaching; Preaching is a heralding of a message.
It can be any topic that is then taken into the blazing center of the glory of God.
Many people say such belitting things about preaching because they have never heard it– never heard real preaching.
“It came to me with the force of electric shock” Martin Lloyd-Jones
My prayer is that God will raise up thousands of preachers dominated with the holiness of God.
Jesus Christ has laid His absolute claim on planet Earth, everyone will either bow or burn, this must grip pastors.
The sacrifice of the Son of God and the damnation of the unrepentent sinner is the greatest shout possible under heaven.
This has got to grip us! There is a weight to this office! Where is this weight going to be felt, if not from you? From VeggieTales? Not in a million years! Not from discussion groups, not from radio, not from emergent conversations, but only from you!
The mantle of preaching is soaked in the blood of Jesus and singed with the fires of Hell.
Are you wearing that mantle?
Some of the most prominent Evangelical voices today diminish the power of the Cross and the horror of Hell.
Earnestness comes these days rare.
Today, the joy of millions of Christians is paper thin. We are amusing ourselves to death with games and 107″ TVs and games on our cell phones and slapstick worship.
In this soul-destroying age, books, seminars, and professors are saying “Lighten up, do something amusing!” Where is the Spirit of Jesus? “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27 ESV) What is that about anyway? Come on, lighten up, Jesus! Get Funny! —these counsels are insane
2. The Glory of God
Your preaching is determined by what you think about the glory of God.
Nothing is more ultimate in the mind of God than the glory of God, the radiant beauty of His perfections.
Everywhere you look in the whole Bible, everywhere when God makes explicit why He is doing something it is for His glory, for His name.
It is so crystal clear if you read the Bible.
It you get this, if you feel this, it will affect your preaching to the depths. Nothing affects preaching more than to be struck almost speechless by the passion of God for His glory.
From all eternity, God has known Himself and loved Himself perfectly, He has savored Himself infinitely. He is not only the holiest and happiest being that is, but that can be possibly conceived. You cannot conceive of a greater happiness than infinite power gazing at infinite glory.
An He intends to share this with us. Knowing and enjoying His glory is the reason He created the world.
That infinite knowledge and joy of God in Himself will be in us because Jesus will be in us.
God’s purpose to share with sinners this glory is the definition of love.
You do not honor fully what you don’t enjoy. God is not glorified by being only known, but by being known and enjoyed so much that our lives are transformed by it.
The greatest ethical challenge is so to live so that men don’t glorify you for living that way, but God.
When the glory of God is the treasure of our lives, we will not covet, we will not be mastered by sinful pleasures, we will not nurse a wounded ego or vengeful spirit.
Every sin flows from a failure to treasure God’s glory above all things.
Therefore, one crucial visible way to show God’s glory is humble, self-sacrifical service to others.
3. How People Awaken to the Glory of God and Treasure It
Your goal is to have all your people to say “YES!” to a message like this on the glory of God.
“YES!” “MORE! Less stories, more HIM!”
So how is this done?
2 Cor 3:18 There is no greater verse in the Bible for a preacher than this.
This is God’s way of changing people.
Suppose you find another way to get people to change— it’s not the way and not the change that God wants!
2 Cor 4:3-6 You are going to fail with some people— so are you going to change your method because God has already told you that you will fail with some?
We behold the glory of the LORD most clearly and most crucially in the gospel, so much that Paul calls it the gospel of the glory of Christ.
The gospel is a message, it is words, this is massively important— the paradox is that we must see this glory of God through hearing the word of preaching.
When we preach the gospel we are aiming at the eyes of the heart, this is how we see Him and His glory today in this dispensation. What appears is the glory of the Cross, the glory of the Incarnation, this is your job!
4. How All This Calls Us to a “Expository Exaltation” Style of Preaching
Expository—why? because the gospel comes in word. It’s an amazing thing that Paul puts so much stock in the glory of the gospel in the word.
1. The Gospel is a message about historical events— the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, summoning us to explain the narrative events. Those events are essential to the gospel.
2. The Gospel is a message about what those events achieved— the payment for our sins, the completion of perfect obedience, the destruction of death, the installation of King Jesus, the removal of God’s wrath.
3. The Gospel is a message about the way of transfer of those achievements to people by faith alone.
4. The Gospel is a message about the good things that are true about us because of the transfer of those achievements to us— like redemption, propitiation, justification, sanctification— all of these beg for exposition so your people can live at this awesome banquet table—O what a blessing you could be!
5. The Gospel is a message about our glorious God Himself as our final, eternal, all-satisfying treasure. So often even good pastors stop at #4. But if you stop at #4 you fall short of the Gospel.
Exaltation—why? Woe to us, brothers, if we do this without exaltation over the word.
Exposition and exaltation are like 2 wings of an airplane, if you lose either wing the plane goes down.
If we explain these glories and our faces and demeanor and our lives do not reflect the preciousness of the gospel you are lying! The value of the gospel is as important as the truth of the gospel. If you do not value the gospel you perish!
Panel discussion:
What is bad expositional preaching? Taking a text and treating your sermon as a commentary. Or having affections that are false to or out of proportion with the truth of the content. Other people are pathologically serious, there is a constant intensity that is inappropriate, there are people who have no emotional breadth and should not be pastors. There are others who are so tender that they cannot proclaim some texts appropriately. People can tell if pastors are in touch emotionally with the material they are preaching. Piper
We need to be listening, scavenging, for everything we can give back to the people of God. Duncan
MLJ is my default preacher I listen to when I exercise. also Sinclair Ferguson, John Macarthur, Allistar Begg (Piper)
You cannot train someone to preach, but you can identify one with the gift and then nurture them Mahaney
The difference between an authentic, feeling Christian and a preacher is that a preacher must have the gift of contagion.
The main battle is not fought in the pulpit, it happens as you take hold on Christ and say, “I’ve got to have You! I can’t do this without You! I can’t raise people from the dead!” Piper
Piper’s last minute spiritual preparation before preaching:
A– I admit that I can do nothing without You
P– I pray for your annointing, I need you
T– I trust Your promise that You will be with me and protect me, I go with specific promises
A– Act, my part
You don’t get ready to preach on Saturday. “How long did it take me to prepare this message? 30 years.” Young pastors, cry out to God every day to change you, and will He not hear the cries of His elect? Piper
(regarding young men contemplating the ministry) If a man has the right passions of the heart, I assume that God is up to some sovereign purpose in their lives. Mohler
A strong expositional preaching ministry is magnetic— God will raise up young men who hunger for the preaching ministry. Start a seminary in your church! Give me some competition! —Mohler
Don’t flatter yourself thinking you are the apostle Paul if Timothy is not with you. (i.e. if you are not actively mentoring) —Mohler
God rests lightly on the American church. (the American church doesn’t sense the majesty, greatness, holiness, the weight of God). There is a famine of seeing and savoring the glory of God in the pulpits of America. Almost all contemporary church growth strategies are taking us in the opposite direction of sensing the weight of the glory of God. It is so hard to turn a corner of doing slapstick for the first ten minutes then try to talk about the seriousness of the glory of God. Pastors are afraid of the serious. Why do we think the only healthy atmosphere is funny? Piper
The things that are now sought for transcendence are candles and labryinths and ancient readings instead the presence of the living God. Duncan
The one thing missing in the church is the one thing most needful—passion. Kierkegaard
There is no value in “cultural Christianity” any more with the younger generation, there is no value in just going to services or being entertained or being identified as religious. Mohler
People are realizing that God is God, and it is right to let Him be so. Piper
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