Battling Unbelief - Part 5 — John Piper

We've got two units left. Actually, they're probably going to break out in more than two, because the last one is very large and full of practicality. In fact, the way to think about these sessions today are that those were foundations, and these are applications.

Faith in Future Grace Produces Love

So this is going to be, I think, a lot closer to where you live than they were last time, and I hope that helps you. So my question now is, what are the dynamics of how love or holiness is produced by living by faith in future grace?

Because we've argued it's essential to our final salvation, not because it purchases it, or is the instrument of it, like faith is, but that it warrants it, or credits it, or validates it, or is the evidence of it.

And so love is absolutely essential. And these are familiar texts from last time. In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. So I just point that out, that faith now, and I think I carelessly said, is the agent of love, and somebody pointed out, but agents are people.

Well, instrument means, you pick your word, faith is working through love here. It's producing love. Same thing in 1 Timothy 1 .5, the goal of our instruction is love. That's an amazing statement of the Apostle, isn't it?

The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. So this love is coming from faith, just like this love is coming from faith. Now, let's broaden out. We saw those texts, but let's look at another one, which may not look immediately relevant to this issue of how does faith in future grace help you love people, especially your enemies, but let's try it.

Loving Enemies Through Faith in God's Reward

Matthew 5 .43, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. So there we have this radical, wonderful, beautiful command, and specifically one way to love your enemies is pray for those who persecute you.

Now, where do you get the power to do that absolutely counter-human activity? Humans don't love their enemies. They hate their enemies. Enemies make us mad, really mad. I got mad this week at an email I got.

They're not even from an enemy. It's kind of an in-your-face friend. And I thought, what did you say it like that for? We are wired to be negative towards anybody who's negative towards us. And Jesus comes along and says, love your enemy, pray for them.

He just takes our hearts and just says, that won't do. I'm not in the business of confirming your humanity, not that sinful humanity. Okay, so here's staying with Matthew. Let's go back to the beginning of the chapter and see a dynamic for how it might work.

Blessed are those, this is Matthew 5 .10, who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. So now we got a link, remember, we got a link here because there's pray for those who persecute you. And so he's thinking, love your enemies, especially those who are persecuting you.

So we got the same situation in front of us. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That's a big promise. Blessed are you when people insult you, so he's breaking it down into particulars now, insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

What should your response be? Rejoice. Be glad. That is absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely crazy. Absolutely counter to all human fallen nature. You are being lied about. You are being persecuted. Therefore, what?

Be happy. That's really crazy. We don't feel the force of how unbelievably counter us Jesus is. How can one be so contrary to what one is by nature? Here's the ground. Four, your reward in heaven is great.

Illustration, the prophets. Now here's the question in relation to love. Which is harder, to pray for your enemies or to be authentically happy in the moment of persecution? My answer is it's easier to pray for them because that's an act of my will and I can do it whether I feel like it or not.

They're making me really mad. Then I'm not happy, but you told me to pray for them. So I pray that you change those rascals. That's relatively easy to do. What's hard to do is that. That's impossible without the Holy Spirit opening our eyes to that and really believing it.

Really believing it. Really believing when you get up and your body is racked with pain that you can rejoice. Or people are all around your house in a mob and you don't know whether you're going to die or live.

Like an email I got from a YWAM group a couple of years ago saying, we're not sure what's going to happen. We still have access to the computer. The house is surrounded by a mob. We believe the Lord wants us to stay because we've got a foothold for the gospel here.

Pray for us. Wow, that's authentic stuff. Can you rejoice? Not if you're just you. Not without the Holy Spirit putting this ground clause profoundly in your soul and your mind. So here's the point I'm making in pulling together Matthew 5, 43 and 44.

Matthew 5, 10 to 12. If the key to doing the harder thing is faith in future grace. This is future grace. And the key to rejoicing in it is believing it with all your heart. If the key to doing the harder thing is faith in future grace, then the key to doing the easier thing is faith in future grace.

That's my argument. And I think that would hold. In the Sermon on the Mount, the key to rejoicing in the face of adversity is your reward is great in heaven. Therefore the key to loving your enemy is great is your reward in heaven.

And almost everything I have to say in this unit is just an underlining and a confirmation of that. And you can see then why the battle to fight for faith in future grace is the battle to love. The difference between a legalistic way, I think, to pursue the Christian life and a faith-based way is that you see the command, love, and a legalist tends to attack the command directly.

Okay, there it is. I'm supposed to do that. I will now do that. I will try to do that. And a faith-based person doesn't attack it directly. The faith-based person looks at it and says, no way, I can't do that.

I really get mad at my enemies. And they feel broken. They feel helpless. They feel desperate. They look away to promises. Lord, you have told me that my reward is great in heaven and therefore I can now have joy.

And so I pray now. This is the new battle. This is the indirect battle. I pray that you would open my eyes. I pray that you'd change my heart. I pray that you'd incline me to these glorious promises. And I pray that joy would arise in my heart so that out of the overflow, like in 2 Corinthians 8 with the Macedonians, I would break forth in liberality.

Even towards people who don't like me. That's a different kind of battle than taking it head on and going straight at it. Let's see how it works in chapter 7. This is Jesus in 7, Matthew 7. I don't know if you've ever seen this logical flow.

Prayer, God's Good Gifts, and the Golden Rule

It's a very familiar text on prayer, but look at what it leads to. Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. And he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Oh, what man of you, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? Won't give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil. Jesus was not into complimenting his disciples.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. And here comes one of those how much logics we saw in Romans 5, 10. How much more will you be saved? How much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give what is good to those who ask him.

To give good things to those who ask him. It is going to happen. When you are a little child and you come to your Father and you ask him for what you need, he's not going to give you a stone. Let me stop here a little illustration.

I really think that that is a great help in unanswered prayer. You might think, well, no, that creates the problem for unanswered prayer. It doesn't solve the problem for unanswered prayer. It really does help solve the problem.

Because, notice what it says. What man of you, who when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? It doesn't say he'll give him a loaf. It just says he won't give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake.

It doesn't say he'll give him a fish. It just says he won't give him a snake. And when it promises what he will give, it just says good things. I think I can make this statement without fear of contradiction.

When you pray, trusting God's promises in the Bible, like I'll work all things together for your good, or my God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory, or I will pursue you with goodness and mercy every minute of your life.

If you go and you pray for what you believe you need, a job, a better marriage, help on an exam, you will always get what you ask for, or something better. And the something better may hurt. Here's the illustration.

If you've been in this seminar, I don't know if I used it or not. My son Benjamin was three, maybe. I can't remember how old he was, but I can picture the scene. Here's the kitchen table. Here's the cabinet.

Here's little Benjamin. Can I have a cracker, Daddy? He's asking God for a cracker. I'm God to Benjamin. He's three. And as I say, I look, see if it's snack time. Close enough. Open the cabinet, pull out the crackers, open it, and they're moldy.

They're moldy. And I pull one out, and I say, you can't have this cracker. And he starts crying. And I say, it would be really bad for you. It's got fuzz on it. And he said, I'll eat the fuzz. I just remember it so clearly.

I'll eat the fuzz. Now, what does a prayer-answering dad do? He finds an alternative. Even if it isn't as good in his mind as that. I'm not going to give him a stone, a moldy cracker. So be careful that you don't elevate the promises of answered prayer to the point where you make yourself the infinitely wise governor of the universe.

You don't know what you need, frankly. You don't know what you need. God knows what you need. You have desires and longings, and little children ought to say that to their father. I think it's right to pray about virtually everything in your life and ask for what you believe you need, and then trust him.

But that's not the point I'm trying to make here. I'm just setting up the point. The point I'm trying to make is this word, therefore. You ever notice that? Maybe it's so in your Bible, but it's there in the Greek and in the English.

In everything, therefore, treat people the way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets. That's the golden rule. It's another way of saying love your neighbor. Where does obedience to the golden rule come from?

What's this pointing to? What does therefore point to? It points to a God who will. How much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? Therefore, you can love your enemy at any cost.

You can give, you can make your desires for happiness the measure of other people's desire for happiness and do unto them as you would have them do unto you, even if it looks like today's going to be a really hard day if I do that.

In fact, if I do this act of love, the next five years is going to be a very hard five years. And the point of this therefore, it says God can handle that. Every day, he will give you what you need. Every day, good things are coming to you from your Father.

Therefore, in confidence in that future grace, love your neighbor. Do the thing that looks like it's going to make life hard, though it is loving, because God's going to show up tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next day, and fulfill this promise.

That therefore right there is massively important for living the Christian life. How do you do love in your life? Do you go to promises like this and assure yourself, all right, everybody around me is telling me that if I go to Baton Rouge and take a week off, I won't have as much vacation next summer and I'm going to come back exhausted and, and, and, and.

So there's 10 reasons not to do this act of love that I feel so compelled to do. What do you do at that moment? You just kind of roll the dice? No. You go to promises. You say, Lord, is it true that if your child comes and asks for a loaf and asks for a fish in Baton Rouge and in the subsequent weeks following that you won't give me a stone and you won't give me a steak, you'll give me everything I need to do my work because I've loved people.

Loving Without Immediate Payback

Let's see some more verses pointing in this direction. Luke 14, amazing. Here's the kind of love I want this church to have in your church. He went on to say to the one who had invited him to the banquet, when you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors.

Otherwise, they'll invite you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed since they don't have any means to repay you for you'll be repaid at the resurrection.

Set your heart on what is coming to you at the resurrection. 1 Peter 1 .13, hope fully at the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ and therefore be liberated from the need of payback now.

Some people really stumble in understanding my quest for joy, my quest for satisfaction, thinking like last night that it means health, wealth, and prosperity now. This is the opposite of that. It's the opposite of that.

Don't look for payback now. Find those who cannot pay you back and pour your life into them by confidence that it's going to come back to you. Jesus is going to show up someday. He's going to look upon you and display more of himself to you because of those acts of love than if you had been a self-protecting person trying to maximize your treasures here.

Don't lay up treasures here. Lay up treasures there. He is the central treasure. So let that hope of payback. I know that's a risky language. I think it's just taken from the context here. It doesn't imply salary.

It doesn't imply earning. In fact, I don't think I wrote it down. I don't have it on overhead, but a text from Luke itself that would show you it doesn't imply earning is Luke 17 .10. Remember the story about the laborers who come in, the slaves, and he said, when you have done all that is commanded of you, say, we are unworthy servants, period.

No dessert here. This is not deserve. This is God's free reward because we banked, we banked on the hope that He would be better than payback now. Here's another one. Luke 12 .32. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.

This verse is just so full of little. You're little. You're sheep. You have a father as well as a shepherd. You've got a king. Shepherd, father, king, and guess what? This omnipotent ruler with a father heart and a shepherd care has made a choice, and he's done it gladly with all his heart to give you his kingdom.

Giving Freely Because God Gives the Kingdom

Now, there is no logical connector in the original language here. What is it in his mind? Sell your possessions and give alms. Give to charity. And I, you see my little three dots there maybe. Therefore, what's the, in Jesus' mind, what's the connection between verse 32 and 33?

Don't be afraid, little flock. Yes, you're little. Yes, you're like sheep. Yes, fears threaten you. Don't be afraid. Your shepherd, your father, your king has made the joyful decision to bring you to his kingdom and make you the beneficiary of everything in it forever.

Therefore, how do you get health, wealth, and prosperity after this therefore? Therefore, maximize your earthly comforts. We got a lot to answer for in America. To whom much is given, much will be required.

We all live beyond what we need to live. We all pad our lives too much. Me too. Sell your possessions and give to charity. Jesus doesn't seem to mind at all messing us up because he knows good and well that a thousand questions would follow that command.

Oh, what do you mean sell? Everything? Can't have a house? Can't have a car? Can't have a shirt? Jesus, I think, would just listen to those questions and say, figure it out. You get the idea. You get the idea.

He's not into prescribing lists. He's not into saying which neighborhood, which size house, own rent, which car, use new. He's not into giving the details. He's just into making us feel bad so that we go to our true treasure to feel good, and then it works its way out.