“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Continuing with excerpts from “The Pleasures of God” by John Piper
Since partial external conformity of unbelievers to God’s designs of justice and honesty does in one way delight the heart of God, it was right for William Wilberforce to devote twenty years of his life in the British Parliament to the abolition of the English slave trading, even though the great majority of those merchants who gave up the trade did it under constraint and not for any holy reasons at all. It was the work of God’s grace that rid England of the barbarisms of the African slave trade. Therefore the Lord looked down WITH DELIGHT on February 22, 18-7, when the House of commons passed the decisive bill. The same will be true when persevering pro-life forces bring an end to the wanton, legalized child-killing in America.
Yes, God delighted most in the living POWER OF HOLINESS in the life of Wilberforce and Henry Thornton as they embraced one another and frolicked in the snow like schoolboys outside the chamber. In a different and mysterious way, God also delighted in the SHELL OF HOLINESS that took shape in English society when it was purged of the slave trade once and for all. For he delights in the work of his hands.
John Wesley, the great evangelist, wrote to Wilberforce to strengthen his hand in God. He said:
“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils, but if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary in well doing….”
My prayer is that the truth of God’s pleasure in public justice will inspire any in our day to take up the mantle of William Wilberforce and wear it into the battle against the manifold injustices of our day.
Few of these injustices will give way with brief spurts of outrage. It will take a deep commitment, like Wilberforce’s. May the vision of God’s passion sustain our passion until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)
(Since this book was published, so much more evil has been flowing through this world. It is ever, so much more important that Christians stand for God’s word and for the Truth in the midst of the ever-increasing lies and perversions. Nothing is totally true, except the Word of God, and if Christians don’t stand up for that, who will? Time is short, and we need to tell as many people as we can about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Eternity is forever!)
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 29 ~ ~Isaiah 64:6 ~ ~ “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.”
More excerpts from “The Pleasures of God” by John Piper
(Speaking of our obedience to God coming from our faith in Him)
But what about unbelievers? Does God delight in their just dealings, even though this does not come from faith? There are unbelievers who order their business lives in honest and just ways. Is this a delight to God?
The answer is no and yes, because God looks at the honesty of unbelievers in two different ways. When God looks at their honesty and justice as an outworking of their inner life of unbelief he does not delight in it, because it is sinful.
Romans 14:23 says:
“Whatever is not from faith is sin.”
wallup.net
Honest unbelievers are like a rebellious teenage son who rejects his parents and everything they stand for, and goes to another city. But to make it in the real world, he decides to play by some of their rules. So he gets a job as a cook in a restaurant. Months later his parents happen to visit that city and go to that restaurant. Without knowing he is there, they order one of their favorite delights (call it “just balances”, or “honest scales” And without knowing it, their own son makes the meal they enjoy. But back there in the kitchen he is as rebellious as ever. He is not doing it for their sake at all. So even this act of fixing what they have ordered is an expression of rebellion. If his parents could be told the truth, they would not rejoice and say, “Oh, how wonderful, our son is now a delight to us, because he made our favorite meal!”
So God does not delight in the honesty and justice of unbelievers when he sees it as an expression of their rebellious and unbelieving hearts. Acts done without any trust in God’s grace or any love for his glory are not a delight to God.
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 30 ~ ~ Matthew 5:43-47 ~ ~ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors, do they not do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles, do they not do the same?”
Continuing with excerpts form John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”
(Still speaking of justice in the actions of believers and unbelievers)
But there is a sense in which God does delight in the just balances and honest weights of unbelievers, namely, when he looks at their honesty and justice as fragments of his own divine work expressing a vestige of his own upright image.
This seems to be implied in Proverbs 1:11: “ A just balance and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are his work.”
I think this means that wherever you find just scales and a bag of honest weight, you find the work of God. Justice is God’s creation. Honesty is God’s design. Integrity is the work of God—even in unbelievers—just like their head and heart and hands and feet are his work.
Theologians call this common grace. It isn’t saving grace. It doesn’t get a person to heaven. It is the same grace that makes the sun come up every day on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:43-47 and Matthew 22:10)
It is the grace that keeps a society from sinking into anarchy. When God sees the work of his own common grace holding the world back from premature ruin, and giving at least some outward expression to his purposes of justice and honesty, he delights in what he sees.
The honesty and justice of unbelievers is like a seashell washed up on the beach. There’s no life in it. But it does have a kind of beauty. There is some sturdiness to it and symmetry and order. Life is more enjoyable because this shell exists. It has its uses; you could plant a flower in it, or you could use it to stud your rock wall, or you could teach things from it at school—like the fact that this shell took its form from life.
So it is with the integrity of unbelievers. It is the leftover shell of holiness, the vestige of the image of God, the residue of something glorious and beautiful in the heart of God. It is the very work of his grace preserving and keeping this fallen humanity back from the precipice of anarchy and chaos. When God looks on the honesty and justice of his unbelieving and rebellious creatures IN THIS WAY, he delights in their justice and takes pleasure in their honesty. It is the work of his own hands, and the gift of his common grace.
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 28 ~ ~ Colossians 3:23-24 ~ ~ “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”
Excerpts from “The Pleasures of God” by John Piper
One lesson to be learned already from this is that God has an interest in our nonreligious life. All our business transactions are his concern. God is not so distant or even so “religious” that he only cares about what happens in our religious life.
Every square inch of this earth is his and every minute of our lives is a loan from his breath. He is much more secular than we often think.
We are to submit to the Lordship of Christ. One of the high-ranking executives of McDonald’s Corporation is supposed to have said, “I believe in God, family, and McDonald’s. But when I get to the office, I reverse the order.” This is NOT submission to the Lordship of Christ.
On the other hand:Abraham Kuyper said “There is not an inch of any sphere of life over which Jesus Christ does not say, “Mine” God is passionately concerned with the way we do our business…and live our lives.
Someone brought out this truth: “Is it not a solemn thought, that the eye of God marks all our common dealings in life, either as an ABOMINATION OR A DELIGHT?” We should test ourselves. Are we being shaped more by the secular spirit of the world or by the Spirit of God? The test is this: do we feel that minor business misrepresentations are only part of the game rules of the day or are they an abomination to God? Is God’s will the first and foremost concern in all our political and business dealings, or only in some personal and domestic areas? God’s pleasure in obedience extends passionately to the public sphere of life.
Why is the justice of believers in the public sphere a pleasure to God? We have already shown that obedience is the outworking of faith. So the obedience of public justice glorifies God when it grows out of a heart that is trusting in his promises and is satisfied in his protection and care.
“Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Mt 5:16) Just and honest dealings make the saving, satisfying lordship of God visible.
Proverbs 20:17 says, “Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.” In other words, when we use false balances or lie on our tax returns, misrepresent the facts in our dealings, we are declaring that the fleeting sweetness of sin is more to be desired than the everlasting peace of God. This is no honor to God and therefore no pleasure to his heart. “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.”
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 27 ~ ~ Psalm 19:7 ~ ~ “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;”
Continuing excerpts from “the Pleasures of God” by John Piper
Yesterday we ended with these questions:
We could ask, does God have any delight in the behavior of non-Christian people in the non-religious areas of life? What sort of action does God delight in here? Why does he?
Proverbs 11:1 is a decisive pointer in answering these questions. The verse doesn’t say whether believers or unbelievers are in view. It simply says, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.”
The implications here are far-reaching. Suppose you were a merchant in the Old Testament times and you sold corn meal. Suppose that in those days ten cents a pound was a fair price. Someone comes to you and asks to buy five pounds of corn meal. So you reach for your five-pound stone and place it in the dish on one side of the scales. Then you take your bag of meal and start pouring it into the dish on the other side of the scale. You pour until the two dishes swing at the same level. Then you pour the dish full of meal into your customer’s container, and he knows that he has been given the right amount. The size of a five-pound stone is common knowledge.
But then suppose that during the night you took a sharp, hard blade and dug a small hole in the side of the stone and worked it around hollowing out the inside until it weighed only four pounds. Then you covered the little hole over with clay the same color as the stone and let it dry. The next day you don’t use it on the educated and strong, because they might make a fuss over the smaller pile of meal, and might even examine the stone. But when the child comes on behalf of his mother, or when the widow comes who is partially blind, you use your hollow stone. Our text says that this is utterly reprehensible to God: “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord.”
Now, what sorts of acts in our day are implied in the phrase, “false balance”? I’ll mention four categories.
referring to sellers
A gasoline pump that reads a penny more per gallon than it should or a grocery store scale that reads high. Maybe a medicine label that claims to do too much, or a realtor who doesn’t tell a buyer about a flooding problem in the house. It could be a college teacher who hasn’t written a new lecture in ten years and spends his time on his own pursuits.
referring to buyers When the buyer schemes to pay less than the goods or services are really worth. You can see what God thinks of such an act in Proverbs 20:14. “It is bad, it is bad’ says the buyer but when he goes away, then be boasts” This would include paying some poor vendor in Tijuana a ridiculously small sum for a quality rug he had made because he is desperate for a sale and you can take it our leave it. It would include not paying a late penalty on my water bill by dating my check before the deadline.
The other way to categorize the acts denounced in Proverbs 11:1 is to notice that it refers to acts of deceit and it refers to acts of injustice.
It includes acts of deceit in transactions with other people. So the act expresses a lie. For example, as you do your income tax returns this verse has something definite to say about whether your reporting is a delight to God or an abomination to him. Or you might file an insurance claim and lie about the extent of damages in order to get a better settlement.
The other side of this category is that such acts of deceit always do an injustice to another person. A person does not get what is his due. For example, you might stick a person with a lemon of a car by not being truthful about its condition when you sell it. Or you might rush a refugee family into signing a lease for an unseen apartment and charge them exorbitant rent and leave the apartment in poor condition with no improvements.
I hope you can see that all such things are implied in Proverbs 11:2, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” you can be a deceitful seller or buyer, and you can do an injustice to a buyer or seller.
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 26 ~ ~ Psalm 40:8 ~ ~ “I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your lawis within my heart.”
Continuing with “The Pleasures of God” by John Piper
The point I have been laboring to clarify here is that God’s pleasure in obedience is good news because that obedience that pleases him is the obedience OF FAITH. Another way to put it would be to say that God is happy with our obedience when our obedience is the overflow of our happiness with God.
God is delighted with our obedience when it is the fruit of our delight in him. Our obedience Our is God’s pleasure when it proves that God is our treasure.
In other words, the command to obey is the command to be happy with God. The commandments of god are only as hard to obey as the promises of God are hard to believe. The Word of God is only as hard to obey as the beauty of God is hard to cherish.
(Again, it all comes back to taking the time and effort to get to know God, which inevitably makes us love Him more and more, and that makes us want to obey Him. It’s a beautiful progression).
God’s pleasure in obedience extends into the public sphere of life too. I want to relate God’s pleasure to the issues of public justice. In the last three chapters we have been moving from the inside to the outside of life. God rejoices over those who HOPE in his love. God takes pleasure in the PRAYERS of the upright. God delights in OBEDIENCE more than in sacrifice. You can see the movement here from inner to outer experience. HOPE is deepest within. Then it expresses itself more or less openly in PRAYER. Then this prayerful reliance on God gives rise to OBEDIENCE.
But so far we have not stressed the public, or secular dimension of this obedience. You might call this the business part of your life. It includes things like filling up your gas tank and buying antiques and punching a time card, or paying your taxes.
Does God take delight in the way you do things at the store or office or shop or the kitchen? Is any wrong behavior in these nonreligious areas so significant that God would even call them an abomination?
With this concern we have moved out just about as far as we can go; from hope to prayer to general obedience to specific forms of obedience in the nonreligious, business part of life. But there is one more step we could take, and I want to take. We could ask, does God have any delight in the behavior of non-Christian people in the non-religious areas of life? What sort of action does God delight in here? Why does he?
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 25 ~ ~ Romans 10:17 ~ ~ “So then faithcomesbyhearing, and hearingby the word of God.”
Continuing with excerpts from John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”.
(Continuing with the truth that the power of faith will break the attractions of sin, because, knowing Jesus, we will love holiness because it is His personality.)
The writer to the Hebrews works this out for us in some practical illustrations. For example, he shows that Moses’ obedience and love was produced by this kind of faith.
Hebrews 11:24-26 ~ ~ “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered abuse suffered for the Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward.”
Here we see the key to the triumph of obedience over disobedience. The key is confidence that what Christ offers is better than the “fleeting pleasures of sin.” Moses looked to the reward of God’s promises, he weighed that against the rewards of unrighteousness, and he rested satisfied in God. With that, the power of sin was broken and he was freed to love a rebellious people for forty years. The writer of Hebrews calls this liberating contentment “faith.” “BY FAITH, Moses….chose to share ill-treatment with the people of God.”
The definition of faith behind this usage is given in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” In other words, faith is the satisfied assurance that God will work things out in the future far better than I could work them out by relying on myself or by departing from the path of obedience—even if obedience means suffering now. Being satisfied with all that God is for me in Christ—past, present, and future—is the power to resist the alluring temptations of disobedience.
The writer of Hebrews gives another, even more graphic illustration of the way faith produces obedience. He tells the story of how in the early days of their faith the Christians showed great love to the imprisoned saints by visiting them at a great cost to themselves. What was the powerful source of this obedience to the command to“remember those who are in prison” (Hebrews 13:3)?
We’re told in Hebrews 10:32-36
Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on the prisoners, and YOU JOYFULLY ACCEPTED THE PLUNDERING OF YOUR PROPERTY, SINCE YOU KNEW THAT YOU YOURSELVES HAD A BETTER POSSESSION AND AN ABIDING ONE. Therefore do not throw away your confidence which has great reward.”
In these Christians’ lives, the power to love was the confidence that God would take care of their future. So their obedience was the obedience of faith. The cost of obedience—which was immense—was not so great as the offsetting promise of God. The assurance of things hoped for was the source of the obedience of love. This is what Paul meant in Galatians 5:6 when he said:
“In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but FAITH WORKING THROUGH LOVE.” Faith works through love because faith is satisfied with all that God is for us in Christ, and so faith breaks the alluring power of selfish temptations.
(Put simply, the only way to increase our faith (and by that, live in obedience) is by getting to know Jesus, and getting to know the Father, ………..their power, their character, their love, their justice, and everything about them. To know the Triune God is to have love for Him, and faith in Him. On our end, it’s as easy as studying the Bible AFTER we have truly given Him our lives, knowing that Christ suffered and died to save us from eternal punishment. “Trust and obey for there is no better way…”
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 24 ~ ~ Psalm 19:7 ~ ~ “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;”
Excerpts from “The Pleasures of God” by John Piper
(Yesterday we talked about obedience coming from genuine faith being necessary for salvation.)
But how does faith produce obedience? When you trust Christ to take care of your future (“faith is the assurance of things hoped for”), the inevitable result is that sinful strategies to gain happiness sink in the peaceful confidence that God will make a greater joy for you in his own way. Therefore moral conformity to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) is the fruit of faith.
Martin Luther saw this so clearly! In the two years between October 1518 and October 1520, the indomitable reformer had a respite from the Roman (Catholic church) siege. He worked feverishly, not knowing how long his safety would last. One of the works that came from this period was the walloping little pamphlet called “The Freedom of a Christian”. Even in translation, and four centuries later, it vibrates with the passion of this ignited man.
It captures —or I should say releases!) the connection between faith and holiness—between confidence in the promises of Christ and conformity to the person of Christ. Luther wrote;
“It is a further function of faith that it honors him whom it trusts (Christ) with the most reverent and highest regard, since it considers him truthful and trustworthy. So when the soul firmly trusts God’s promises, it regards him as truthful and righteous. When this is done, the soul consents to his will. Then it hallows his name and allows itself to be treated according to God’s good pleasure for, clinging to God’s promises, it does not doubt that he who is true, just, and wise will do, and provide all things well.
Is not such a soul most obedient to God in all things by this faith? What commandment is there that obedience has not completely fulfilled? This obedience, however, is not rendered by works, but by faith alone.”
We should never think of obedience as something unattached to saving faith as though the one could exist for long without the other. Obedience to Christ is the NECESSARY RESULT of true faith.
But to make crystal clear why it is that faith begets obedience, or practical likeness to Christ, we should draw out the essential meaning of saving faith even more clearly than we have so far. We will see in a moment from Hebrews that the FUTURE dimension of saving faith is essential if faith is to have its sanctifying effect. Trusting in God to meet our needs breaks the power of sin’s promise to make us happier. But what we need to see here is that the ESSENCE OF FAITH IS BEING SATISFIED WITH ALL THAT GOD IS FOR US IN CHRIST.
This statement emphasizes two things. One is the God-centeredness of faith. It is not merely the PROMISES of God that satisfy us. It is all that GOD HIMSELF is for us Faith embraces God—not just his promised gifts—as our treasure. Faith banks its hope not just on the real estate of the age to come, but on the fact that GOD will be there. (Revelation 21:3). And even NOW what faith embraces most earnestly is not just the reality of sins forgiven—as precious as that it— but the presence of the living Christ in our hearts and the fullness of God himself. (Ephesians 3:17-19).
The other thing emphasized in defining faith as BEING SATISFIED WITH ALL THAT GOD IS FOR US is the term, “satisfaction”.
Faith is not just believing facts about God. It is not just intellectual assent. Faith is the quenching of the soul’s thirst at the fountain of God. The biblical evidence for this can be seen most easily in John 6:35. “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life: he who COMES to me shall not hunger, and he who BELIEVES in me shall never thirst.’”
“Believing” means “coming” to Jesus to eat and drink the bread of life and the living water. (John 4:10, 14) which are nothing other than Jesus himself. And when we eat this food and drink this water we are satisfied with Jesus. That is the meaning of faith. We rest in him.
Here is the secret of the power of faith: WE REST IN JESUS.
Here is the secret of the power of faith to break the enslaving force of sinful attractions. If the heart is satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus, then the power of sin to lure us away from the wisdom of Christ is broken!
We will love holiness because it is an expression of the personality of the One who brings us so much satisfaction.
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 23 ~ ~ Acts 26:18 ~ ~ “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’”
From “the Pleasures of God” by John Piper
Underlying this mistake (that obedience precedes salvation), is a misunderstanding of grace. Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God NOT to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon. This is plain, for example, in 1Corinthians 15:10. “by the GRACE of God I am what I am, and his GRACE toward me did not prove vain; but I labored harder than all of them, yet not I, but the GRACE of God which is in me.”
Grace is not simply the pardon of Paul’s sins, it is the power to press on in obedience. Therefore the effort we make to obey God is not an effort done in our own strength, but “in the strength which God supplies, that in everything God may get the glory.” (1Peter 4:11)
Doing something by relying on strength which God supplies simply means doing it by faith. Therefore the obedience which gives God pleasure is by grace through faith. It is the obedience of faith.
Paul confirms this in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 by calling our acts of goodness “works of FAITH” and by saying that the glory this brings to Jesus is “according to the GRACE of God” because it happens “by (his) power.” “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfill every good resolve and work of faith by (his) power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him ACCORDING TO THE GRACE OF OUR GOD, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The obedience that gives God pleasure is produced by the POWER of God’s GRACE through FAITH. The same dynamic is at work at every stage of the Christian life,. The power of God’s grace that saves through faith (Ephesians 2:8) is the same power of God’s grace that sanctifies through faith.
The reason for this is that sanctification (making us holy and obedient) is part of salvation. It is a great mistake to think of salvation as stage one in the Christian life and sanctification as stage two. Salvation is the big biblical term that describes all God’s saving work for us and in us, past, present, and future. We “have been saved” (Ephesians 2:8), “are being saved” (1 Corinthians 1:18) and “will be saved” (Romans 13:11and 1 Peter 1:5)
Salvation is not one stage in the Christian life. It IS the Christian life. Sanctification is one essential part of it.
So Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:13-14, “We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning TO BE SAVED, THROUGH SANCTIFICATION by the Spirit and BELIEF IN TRUTH” (See also 1 Thess 4:7-8 & 1 Peter 1:5)
Notice two things. First, we are not saved apart from sanctification. “God chose you to be saved, THROUGH SANCTIFICATION.” It is an ESSENTIAL part of salvation, not an optional stage AFTER salvation.
Second, this process of salvation through sanctification happens “through belief in the truth.” That is, sanctification is by faith. Or to put it most plainly, the obedience which pleases God is the obedience of faith, and the obedience of faith is an essential part of salvation. We are chosen to be saved THROUGH SANCTIFICATION, which is the same as the obedience of faith.
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 23 ~ ~ Acts 26:18 ~ ~ “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’”
From “the Pleasures of God” by John Piper
Underlying this mistake (that obedience precedes salvation), is a misunderstanding of grace. Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God NOT to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon. This is plain, for example, in 1Corinthians 15:10. “by the GRACE of God I am what I am, and his GRACE toward me did not prove vain; but I labored harder than all of them, yet not I, but the GRACE of God which is in me.”
Grace is not simply the pardon of Paul’s sins, it is the power to press on in obedience. Therefore the effort we make to obey God is not an effort done in our own strength, but “in the strength which God supplies, that in everything God may get the glory.” (1Peter 4:11)
Doing something by relying on strength which God supplies simply means doing it by faith. Therefore the obedience which gives God pleasure is by grace through faith. It is the obedience of faith.
Paul confirms this in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 by calling our acts of goodness “works of FAITH” and by saying that the glory this brings to Jesus is “according to the GRACE of God” because it happens “by (his) power.” “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfill every good resolve and work of faith by (his) power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him ACCORDING TO THE GRACE OF OUR GOD, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The obedience that gives God pleasure is produced by the POWER of God’s GRACE through FAITH. The same dynamic is at work at every stage of the Christian life,. The power of God’s grace that saves through faith (Ephesians 2:8) is the same power of God’s grace that sanctifies through faith.
The reason for this is that sanctification (making us holy and obedient) is part of salvation. It is a great mistake to think of salvation as stage one in the Christian life and sanctification as stage two. Salvation is the big biblical term that describes all God’s saving work for us and in us, past, present, and future. We “have been saved” (Ephesians 2:8), “are being saved” (1 Corinthians 1:18) and “will be saved” (Romans 13:11and 1 Peter 1:5)
Salvation is not one stage in the Christian life. It IS the Christian life. Sanctification is one essential part of it.
So Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:13-14, “We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning TO BE SAVED, THROUGH SANCTIFICATION by the Spirit and BELIEF IN TRUTH” (See also 1 Thess 4:7-8 & 1 Peter 1:5)
Notice two things. First, we are not saved apart from sanctification. “God chose you to be saved, THROUGH SANCTIFICATION.” It is an ESSENTIAL part of salvation, not an optional stage AFTER salvation.
Second, this process of salvation through sanctification happens “through belief in the truth.” That is, sanctification is by faith. Or to put it most plainly, the obedience which pleases God is the obedience of faith, and the obedience of faith is an essential part of salvation. We are chosen to be saved THROUGH SANCTIFICATION, which is the same as the obedience of faith.
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 22 ~ ~Ephesians 2:8-9 ~ ~ “For bygrace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
John Piper:
God has pleasure in obedience because obedience he loves is obedience of faith.
There is so much misconception today that some people don’t understand how faith and obedience are necessarily connected as a root and branch. Therefore, you often find in many churches, the cultivation of the implicit two-stage Christianity; a faith stage, then (maybe) an obedience stage.
But this is not the way the Bible pictures the life of faith. The separation of faith and obedience, as though faith were necessary for salvation and obedience were optional, is a mistake owing to a misunderstanding of what faith really is.
True saving faith is not the kind of belief in the facts of the gospel that leaves the heart and life unchanged. That would mean that we are saved by faith in order to produce good behavior. THIS IS NOT TRUE.
The good news is that saving faith is by it’s nature a LIFE-CHANGING POWER.
Saving faith has an intrinsic power to produce spiritual fruit in our lives. As Paul says in Galatians 5:6, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.” Faith works through love. If it doesn’t it is dead and cannot save. As James 2:17 says, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” The good news is not that obedience is not crucial, but that faith is the only way to obey, and this obedience of faith is the only kind God approves (see Romans 1:5 and 14:23)
It is a great irony that people who cultivate a two-state Christianity do so in the name of grace, but in effect nullify grace. They say there is a faith stage necessary for getting to heaven, and then an obedience stage not necessary for getting to heaven.
This looks like grace because they say obedience is not mandatory. But in fact, the whole Christian life is gradually transformed into an experience of something other than a life lived by faith.
Having cut the root of faith away from obedience to make obedience optional and exalt grace, in effect they define the life of obedience as a life of works which we are to produce not by saving faith, but by our own effort. This effort to obey by our own effort, is obviously not an event of grace.
(What he is saying is simply what we’re told in many places of the New Testament writings. That we are incapable of earning our way to heaven by ourselves. It is purely God changing us, making us a new creation, namely, a person with a spirit that is again connected to God, like Adam and Eve before sin entered the scene. After that, God sees us through the sacrifice of Jesus, after taking the punishment for our sins. Obedience comes in, not to make that happen, but as a result of that happening. It’s all God, not us….like the verse of the day above says.
~Ephesians 2:8-9 ~ ~ “For bygrace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” )
