Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: John Newton 3

Let me let me take another piece of the pattern of his tenderness. It's language. The use of language to make truth winsome healing and Tenderly effective in people's lives. I want you to get this because we can all grow in this and I want us to grow in this.

Newton had the eye the heart and the tongue of a poet a spiritual poet. He wrote hundreds of hymns which were poems. He wrote them for special occasions. He wrote them for his family. Which means that He he did not engage in excessive abstraction, but in concrete word and illustration.

Instead of generalizing He spoke of the specific bird flower apple shabby old man. Give you an illustration in other words the eye of the the spiritual poet. Which we all should want to have whether you can write poetry or not as matter.

But the eye of the spiritual seer poet that looks at the world in such a way that it it Rings with the divine the heavens are telling the glory of God. Do you see it and does it move you and are you? Taken up into it and feel it and bring it down through your brain and heart into language.

So that people are made alive with it. Congregations come alive when language flows like that from what you saw in the sky or the night moon or the flower or the fish or the child or the bridge or the traffic or the Hospital bed and you bring it through the dynamic of a great theology out with concrete language.

Congregations live on word like that your mouth becomes a fountain of life. But if you abstract and generalize all the time, they will die. They will just shivel up and you will be called a boring preacher and and they're just way too many boring preachers.

Illustrations That Break Through Darkness

He was watching an eclipse of the moon, this is what he wrote tonight. I attended an eclipse of the moon. How great O Lord are thy works. With what punctuality do the heavenly bodies fulfill their courses?

I.

Thought.

My lord of thine eclipse. The horrible darkness which overwhelmed the mind when thou sets. Why hast thou forsaken me? Ah. Sin was the cause my sins. Yet, I do not hate sin or loathe myself as I ought.

You ever experienced an eclipse of the moon like that? What's wrong? Newton's language was full of this kind of thing. Most of us gravitate to abstractions. We say men tend to choose lesser pleasures and reject greater ones.

You can picture yourself saying that can't you. That's an abstraction. You can only say that so many times they'll be Newton says.

Same point.

The men of this world are children. Offer a child an apple and a banknote. He will doubtless choose the Apple.

Like that.

Don't generalize in abstractions, don't read that sentence and say huh now I got to distill that into a principle.

That's exactly backwards.

You know the principles. Get that sentence into your mouth get the apple and the banknote in your mouth. We say Men are foolish to fret so much over material things when they will inherit eternal riches.

Well, that's true, and that can be moving maybe. Newton says suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate and his carriage Should break down one mile Before he got to the city Which obliged him to walk the rest of the way to the inheritance.

What fool we should think him if we saw him wringing his hands and Blubbering out all the remaining mile. My carriage is broken. My carriage is broken.

You get it you if you take principles and.

Abstractions and theories and labor. With the eye of a poet he must have seen something like this a broken carriage on his way to church one day. Oh.

That's good. My carriage is broken. My carriage is broken. I mean my whole life is like that.

I don't have to look at anybody see my carriage is broken. I'm always complaining murmuring. Just get in front of the mirror. That's the main place you learn how to illustrate truth. It's standing in front of the mirror especially sin.

So this is not merely a matter of style. Now I I experienced this last night. This is serious. Now. This is not a matter of style. This is a matter of life and death in your church. Here's what I mean.

Last night a man Stood here to talk to us. And I'm sitting there Thinking now what kinds of things in counseling will break through break through into darkness and.

Give light. How do you get into people's darkness?

Is there a human way to get into the darkness of a Cooper or anybody in your office and give them light?

Two things I remember from last night that worked that way for me and.

Will come out of this mouth in the darkness of my study. One is a.

Two watt light bulb in a totally dark room changes everything. Because we got one of those for our little girl Talitha. I.

Look at that little thing it plugs into the socket on the wall in the bathroom.

Teeny teeny teeny. Little electric.

Glowing coil I Can see it from my bedroom around corners. It's just it I would never stub my toe. So here's here's the truth that just blew into my heart with that little image last night. What came into my heart was I labor under the sense that what I'm facing.

Colossal darkness.

I gotta have a big light solution or I can't do anything for this person.

And now I have been shown by the use of an image and a language that no Two watts will do this afternoon. Thank you. Just two watts will get me through another week. You got two watts in your battery pastor and here was the other one the hurricane.

Wrong so much wrong wrong suffering. In a situation say Sarah situation or the India earthquake of the El Salvador earthquake or a church has been ripped apart right now. In your situation, it's just so complicated so huge so messy.

I.

Gotta I gotta fix this hurricane.

No, you don't. You need to know two acts of obedience today. The eye of the storm is small compared to this thing. You can live in it. You do the next thing. Find some parents for your kids. If you're gonna die in two months, just do that.

You don't have to fix the cancer. You don't have to be there when they go to college. Just do what you can do. Now that's an illustration. Hurricane. And to what light bulb. Of what I mean by this is not a style issue here.

This is life. This is life for John Piper, this is life for you pastors. It's life for your people. You need to open your eyes. And if you don't have your eyes open to see the world like that. You know what the problem is seeing.

You are so wrapped up in yourself and your little problems. You don't trust in the providence of God enough to free you to see what God's saying to you all the time in broken carriages and lunar eclipses.

And the glory of the Lord shining down. And yes one last thing on this pattern of tenderness and yes, there's a place for humor. Many people ask me about that in his pattern of tenderness. But not the contrived levity of so many communicators today who know how to work an audience but the balanced Earthy experience of the way the world really is in its horror and its humor.

There would be more real laughter in our churches. If there were more tears ask yourself this question. What is the quality of the laughter in a family? Over the meal. After the funeral is it jokes? Are they saying in an uncomfortable ice-breaking kind of way?

Hey, did you hear the one about the guy? Everybody's gonna look at you and say.

Leave the ministry.

That's not why they're laughing. Joanne who sat right right there on Sunday lost her dad last Sunday. The whole family was there and I went to the funeral and participated in it on Thursday night and Everybody who got up testified to how much they'd been laughing together.

That is pure.

Health.

It's called.

Health.

It's just health. It's just there because that's the way daddy was. That's the way daddy talked. That's the way he wore his sweater. Wrong buttoned up. That's that was daddy.

That.

Everybody knows if you can't laugh there, you're sick.

Laughter is a mark health and the world rings with horror. I.

Look at these horrible pictures of those bodies crushed under that cement and I think about 60 hours and the water.

Dripping into his mouth and Wondering will I suffocate here and others who didn't have 60 hours and how many hours they survived? I can hardly stand what my imagination does at those moments. And yet I'll walk home in an hour.

It's absolutely.

Hysterical will happen on the bridge or at home with my little girl or something. That's life and your people need to see the tears for India and They need to see you laugh till the tears run down your face because of that wacko thing that elder just said.

So yes, yes.

Tenderness I'm talking about how to be a tender.

Habitually loved and loving.

Shepherd there's a place for that and and let me see if I can just sum up these last few things on roots. The talk is about the tough roots of the habitual tenderness. I have three number one Newton's realism about the limits of this life.

Oh how helpful it is to hear his his. Realism only so much as possible in a fallen world. We groan waiting for the redemption of our bodies and if we don't realize the limits of our ministry. We will absolutely go crazy trying to fix the world and fix everybody.

He said my course of study. Like that of a surgeon has been principally in walking the hospital. He did not however become cynical as he walked the hospital and saw the Irremedial diseases of bedlam, you know where bedlam comes from insane asylum hospital in his day.

He said I endeavor to walk through the world as a physician goes through bedlam. The patients make noise. Pester him with impertinence. Hinder him in his business. But he does the best he can and gets through.

I Read that last November or somewhere and I said, thank you. Thank you. I thought I'd just do the best I can. Get through get through this mess get through that mess get through this mess. Thank you Newton.

Thank you for telling me. That's the way you did your ministry. You just walk through an insane asylum and you're pestered by this person and grabbed by that person and. And you reach out you touch you pray you bless you call you do you want you get criticism?

You didn't call soon enough. You didn't say it this and and you just look up and say Sinner. Oh, I am. I did the best I could. I'm gonna keep going and that's the key.

Realism keeps you going.

Perfectionism wipes you out. So have Newton's realism. Here's the here's the picture. He had to put it in a picture, right? It's so beautiful. He's standing at his window looking out on the Sun about to come up.

The day is now breaking. How beautiful its appearance. How welcome the expectation of the approaching Sun it is this thought? Makes the dawn.

Agreeable.

That it is the presage of a brighter light. Otherwise if we expect no more day than in this minute We should rather complain of darkness than rejoice in the early beauties of the morning. Thus the life of grace is the dawn of immortality.

Beautiful beyond expression if compared with the night of thick darkness which formerly covered us yet faint and indistinct and Unsatisfying in comparison to the glory that will be revealed. And we heard that this morning.

We heard that this morning. That the only way that keeps us going in the ministry is when a man tells us that he's still doing his Masturbation thing and can't seem to shake these fantasies is to ask him.

Where'd you come from? Remember that story.

Compared with.

The present condition only there's a lot of darkness left. But the Sun's rising in your life. It's rising in your life and The the glory is going to be beautiful so be realistic folks we groan Inwardly waiting our adoption of sons the redemption of our bodies are groaning in this life will never end.

There will be mental illness. There will be physical illness. There will be church disputes. There will be Marital stresses there will be wayward children till Jesus comes and if we can't Model our way through the insane asylum of this world.

We will quit. Let's help each other not quit. Newton has helped me. I want to help you. That's one route. The next group is his humility and gratitude then the last one is his confidence in Providence.

Just one quick word about each. Maybe he was overwhelmed by amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see till the day he died he never ceased to be blown away by the fact that he had been saved and Made a preacher of the gospel that he wants labored to destroy and mock.

He wrote his own epitaph and read it on his Grave, which is now and only used to be in in London. They moved it so a subway could go through underneath the church. John Newton clerk. Once an infidel and libertine a servant of slaves in Africa was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Preserved restored pardoned and appointed to preach the faith. He had long labored to destroy near 16 years at only in Bucks and and they left the number blank years at This church in st. Mary's Woolnoth.

He was overwhelmed by this and he wrote. He didn't see how anybody could know how he was saved and not treat others with kindness. He said a Humble humble under such a sense of much forgiveness to himself.

He finds it easy to forgive others if you're a hard pastor. You don't properly know what's happened to you. If you're a hard pastor Your first reaction is a hard Reaction you are not duly.

Feeling the wonder that you are saved. Forgiven.

Accepted so dwell on it linger on it. Let yourself Marvel at your own forgiveness and your own acceptance and all that implies about your relationship now and forever. And it will soften You. He had to put him in a picture.

Here. It is a company of travelers fall into a pit. One of them gets a passenger a Passerby to draw him out. Now he should not be angry with the rest for falling in. For because they are not yet out as he is He did not pull himself out.

Instead therefore of reproaching them he should show them pity. A Man truly illuminated will no more despise others than Barnett. Mayus Bartimaeus after his own eyes were open should take a stick and beat every blind man He met.

Don't you want to talk like that? Come on, let's let's become that kind of life giving. Why did you laugh at that? See that's not a joke. That's not a joke.

That's a vivid powerful pointed.

Indicting word to me who tends to.

Hit people because they don't see what they ought to see.

Confidence in Providence and Freedom from Inferior Pleasures

Last.

Root.

He loved and rested in the providence of God. And and I'll just say here that that if you don't feel confident that all of your miseries and Sadnesses and pain are going to work together for your good under the hand of a loving father. You will eventually Cave and begin to Need the world.

You will reach for pornography or you'll reach for money or you'll reach for the praise of men. Because you have felt beat up so bad. That you said a little reward here. I knew the reward here. No, you don't you need your eyes open to the fact that you didn't get beat up.

You got handled wisely by a loving father who knows how to make you into the image of Jesus. Is your heart breaking right now? You know why? So that you'll know how to handle broken hearts. You don't like that shouldn't be in the ministry.

God breaks our hearts For a reason and he's not mean he's not ugly. He's not unwise. He's not unkind. He's a surgeon. He knows how to turn us into pastors.

Well.

The last implication of that Providence thing is that if you're not confident that God will be your all-in-all Through his wonderful overarching work for you Then you will not have the power to resist the allurements of inferior pleasures.

I'll read it. This is my Christian hedonism swan song. By faith the believer triumphs over the world's smiles and enticements. He sees that all that is in the world suited to gratify the desires of the flesh or the eye is Not only to be avoided as sinful but as incompatible with his best.

Pleasures.

So the roots of his habitual tenderness are one Realism that we will groan until our bodies are redeemed. You will always have a groaning church. You will always be a groaning pastor. You will always have a groaning marriage and you will always have readings of groan about your children.

Secondly the all-pervasive humility that he had came from an awareness that he had been wonderfully forgiven and Undeserved and Thirdly he trusted in the providence of God so that he wouldn't say all the way to heaven My carriage is broken.

My carriage is broken. But instead would say tis grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.

Questions on Staying in a Hostile Baptist Association

Okay.

I'm happy to stay if you want to ask some questions. We'll start right there on that microphone. I.

Belong to a small Baptist Association Much like yours and Calvinistic thinkers are few and far between and for a lot of people in the association. They're really hostile towards it and me and some other young ministers.

Coming up has seen it and it's just a beauty to us. It's just well enough inside of us. But sometimes we feel like we have to walk so softly that we're not getting. Seeing any change not be able to present this beautiful thing.

What would your be your advice to a to a young minister about Jump maybe jumping ship or staying in there walking, you know as softly and trying to change things.

I Don't want to be advocating messing splitting churches. A Split Armenian Church is no better off than a unified Armenian Church. And so I don't think I want to encourage you to do that at all. I want to encourage you to pray.

I want to encourage you to humbly love the flock that God has given you to love. I want to encourage you to let the truth and sweetness of the God that you know What you call a reformed vision of God to be the power that sustains you in your situation.

To care. I want you to be honest and teach what you see is truth and and teach it mixed in with all the Nitty-gritty of life so that the kids grow in your ministry. And I want the proof to be in the pudding so that the parents will look at these kids and say what are they getting.

And One themselves that would be the council I would give and if that aborts Giving it your best shot over X number of years and I can't tell you how many. Then I think you'd sit down with your senior pastor.

You tell him your heart's desire. You'd share the situation and ask him to give you counsel and.

If he says well.

Maybe we do need to go our separate ways and and then you go but you don't you don't. Pull that trigger very very quickly.

I don't think.

What Grace Is and Why It Is God-Centered

Dr. Piper there's several books been coming out on the wider readership on grace. I Our brother Chuck Smith wrote one out in, California. There's so much being talked about by grace. But what is your how does grace relate to God's supremacy God's pleasures and and really what?

How does grace? Because most of what I read is like water off a duck's back. You know, what is what is your real understanding of why we would see Newton as a maybe a good portrait of grace.

Grace is The overflow of God's self-sufficiency. So you can't have grace if you don't have an utterly infinitely.

Gloriously.

Self-satisfied all-sufficient overflowing God who doesn't need you at all. So you need it you need to test people's Read of grace with. I try to come up with new questions periodically to test Myself and others to see if they're more American than they are biblical more 20th century or 21st century than they are first century Christian.

And The one I've been using for the last couple of years is do you feel more loved when God makes much of you or Do you feel more loved when God frees you? To enjoy making much of him forever. The former is not grace.

The latter is grace. Because it's God-centered. I Fear that for most Americans who have grown up on the self-esteem gospel The only filter in their brain to understand grace is that which makes much of me.

If it doesn't make much of me and thus help me feel good about being made much of I don't feel graciously treated. That's a fundamental flaw in their whole makeup and network. What our hardest job is to shift the categories of emotion and thought?

Such that God becomes the center of the universe Around which all the planets Circle so that the highest experience of Satisfaction is in making much of him not having him make much of us and so The way that happens is that you recognize him as an infinitely all-sufficient Overflowing fountain that is worthy of your trust worthy of your delight worthy of your praise worthy of your allegiance.

And you begin to live that way and and grace is the.

Utterly.

Undeserved action of God to include you in that enjoyment. If you don't define grace in terms of enjoying God, I don't know how you can keep it from being Self-centered. Now we'll have to discuss this some more on the panel to see where I fit in with this need.

Need stuff right that David Powelson has been talking about. Because there's some fuzzy we need to think clearly about this. But I think.

God.

Centeredness is.

Preserved by making him the center of your desires. I Wonder if David would agree with that. I don't think he's here, but he'll be here Lord willing tomorrow.

That.

The test of whether you get grace or not is is The best thing God could do for you is give you God to enjoy. If you don't think that's the best thing he could do for you. You don't get grace if you think the best thing he could do for you is to give you a good marriage or Believing kids or a healthy body or a successful church.

You don't understand grace. The the highest most loving most gracious thing God could do for you is to give you God for your everlasting and ever-increasing.

Enjoyment.

If you don't get that you don't get grace. So I don't hear too many people saying that and so I don't think grace is. I don't think we quite got grace yet.

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