John Piper’s Most-Used Promises
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - John Piper is back, joining us again
00:00:06.880 | outside the studio and over the telephone.
00:00:08.680 | And today we have a really great question
00:00:10.600 | from a listener named David in Nashville.
00:00:12.560 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:14.120 | You've said that steeping yourself in
00:00:17.040 | and meditating on God's promises
00:00:19.500 | is one of the primary ways we can experience
00:00:21.560 | abiding joy in Him.
00:00:24.040 | So what are some of God's promises in the Bible
00:00:26.120 | that you have treasured most throughout your life?
00:00:29.560 | And why?
00:00:30.520 | - Let me answer this in three stages
00:00:33.800 | that more or less correspond to three stages of my life.
00:00:37.200 | Although they really do overlap.
00:00:40.960 | As I guess the first one lasts my whole life
00:00:44.960 | and the second one lasts my whole life
00:00:46.160 | and the third one, so they kind of overlap
00:00:47.880 | but they have different starting places.
00:00:50.280 | My memory of my childhood isn't good enough
00:00:54.600 | to recall which verses were most,
00:00:58.300 | which promises were most special to me
00:01:00.560 | in my teenage years or earlier.
00:01:03.440 | I look in the Bible that my parents gave me
00:01:05.520 | when I was 15 and I see heavily underlined
00:01:08.920 | in red pencil certain passages.
00:01:12.560 | So I know God was speaking to me as a teenager
00:01:15.640 | and helping me by His word,
00:01:17.320 | but my memory is just not good enough
00:01:19.600 | to remember that experience.
00:01:23.140 | But in my early 20s,
00:01:25.440 | one verse took on monumental proportions
00:01:29.900 | and nothing has dislodged it from its primary place
00:01:34.900 | to this very day in my fight against sin,
00:01:39.700 | encouragement of my heart,
00:01:41.200 | carrying through challenges in ministry
00:01:43.700 | and that is Isaiah 41 verse 10.
00:01:48.180 | "Fear not for I," this is God talking,
00:01:52.500 | "I am with you, be not dismayed for I am your God.
00:01:57.500 | I will strengthen you, I will help you,
00:02:01.780 | I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
00:02:06.780 | So let me mention three things about this promise
00:02:10.000 | to show how it became so central
00:02:13.400 | and why it's so repeatedly helpful to this very day
00:02:18.100 | after thousands of applications.
00:02:20.800 | In July of 1971, I was about to get on an airplane
00:02:25.800 | and fly with Noel to Germany
00:02:28.400 | to begin my doctoral studies at age 25.
00:02:31.920 | I'm sure Isaiah 41 10 had been functional
00:02:34.620 | in my life before that time,
00:02:36.480 | but that day I received a phone call from my father
00:02:41.100 | who couldn't be there to see me off
00:02:43.500 | and he wanted to send me off with the promise of God
00:02:47.720 | and he recited on the phone Isaiah 41 10
00:02:51.140 | and then prayed that God would make it real in my life.
00:02:57.200 | The effect of that phone call was to nail this promise
00:03:02.160 | into the scaffolding of my brain
00:03:05.300 | so firmly that it has become my go-to promise
00:03:09.960 | more than any other.
00:03:10.960 | In those very anxious times in Germany
00:03:15.420 | where everything felt fragile and uncertain
00:03:19.440 | and unknown and threatening,
00:03:21.660 | I resorted to this promise hundreds of times.
00:03:26.060 | So this promise has a special place
00:03:28.400 | in the arsenal of my spiritual warfare,
00:03:32.640 | partly because my father put it there.
00:03:35.820 | But the reason it is so effective
00:03:39.660 | is because unlike many promises,
00:03:43.240 | God himself is speaking as an I to me personally.
00:03:48.240 | It doesn't say God will strengthen you,
00:03:52.140 | God will help you, God will uphold you.
00:03:55.320 | That would be wonderful.
00:03:56.360 | And many promises are spoken that way and they're wonderful.
00:04:00.200 | But what it says is, I will strengthen you,
00:04:03.460 | I will help you and I will uphold you.
00:04:06.180 | So when I recite this promise in my brain
00:04:10.280 | by an act of faith,
00:04:12.260 | I actually hear the living God saying to me,
00:04:17.260 | I will help you.
00:04:19.300 | Spurgeon used to say,
00:04:22.780 | I love the I wills and I shalls of God.
00:04:27.780 | I know exactly what he means.
00:04:30.820 | It's a wonderful thing to hear that God will help you.
00:04:36.880 | Like Romans 8, 28,
00:04:38.480 | God will work everything together for you.
00:04:40.800 | It's just off the charts glorious,
00:04:44.400 | but it's better, it's better
00:04:46.360 | to have God in his own words say, I will help you.
00:04:52.360 | Isaiah 41, 10 is especially valuable also
00:04:57.760 | because those three verbs, I will strengthen,
00:05:02.400 | I will help, I will uphold,
00:05:04.800 | those three verbs correspond to every challenge
00:05:09.380 | that we can face.
00:05:10.680 | Strength when we're weak and inadequate,
00:05:13.640 | help of whatever kind we need,
00:05:16.200 | upholding when we feel threatened and opposed
00:05:18.880 | and beat down or knocked down.
00:05:21.240 | These are awesome verbs that God addresses to our own soul.
00:05:26.240 | It is an amazing promise and it's true, it comes true.
00:05:32.760 | And there's a third reason why this promise is so precious.
00:05:36.280 | Even though it is addressed to Israel
00:05:39.960 | in the Old Testament context,
00:05:43.000 | I know because of 2 Corinthians 1, 20
00:05:47.000 | and because of the blood of Christ
00:05:50.520 | and because of my membership in the new covenant by faith
00:05:55.320 | that all the promises of God are yes for me in Christ Jesus.
00:06:01.900 | That's what 2 Corinthians 1, 20 says.
00:06:04.420 | All the promises of God are yes in Christ Jesus.
00:06:09.420 | So I don't worry that it was addressed to Israel.
00:06:13.940 | I know that I am part of the new Israel in Christ
00:06:18.020 | and the promises are all the more,
00:06:20.300 | all the more true for me because of him.
00:06:25.300 | Then second stage, somewhere along the way,
00:06:29.280 | Romans 8, 32 became very, very prominent
00:06:34.280 | in my spiritual warfare.
00:06:36.920 | He who did not spare his own son,
00:06:38.940 | but gave him up for us all,
00:06:40.700 | how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
00:06:45.700 | Now, Romans 8, 28 had always been large for me,
00:06:51.220 | but verse 32 does something more.
00:06:55.460 | It does something in addition to verse 28.
00:06:59.300 | It includes all the glorious promise of 8, 28.
00:07:03.720 | Everything's gonna work together for my good.
00:07:06.240 | He's gonna give me everything.
00:07:08.080 | He's gonna give me everything, everything I need
00:07:12.160 | in this life, everything I could possibly want
00:07:14.680 | in the life to come.
00:07:15.720 | He's going to give me that and it provides the foundation,
00:07:21.000 | the unshakable foundation of why he will,
00:07:26.000 | which is what gives this promise extraordinary power.
00:07:29.660 | I've called it the unshakable logic of heaven.
00:07:34.660 | Since God did not spare his own son,
00:07:39.260 | but did for us the absolutely unthinkable hardest
00:07:43.780 | of all things in not sparing his son,
00:07:47.700 | human torture and hellish condemnation,
00:07:50.720 | since God did not spare his son any of that,
00:07:54.400 | therefore, therefore, therefore, therefore,
00:07:58.260 | this is the logic of heaven,
00:07:59.620 | therefore, nothing can stop God
00:08:02.780 | from giving us everything with him.
00:08:06.720 | How shall he not with him freely give us all things?
00:08:09.640 | Nothing can stop him.
00:08:10.940 | He will give us all things.
00:08:12.780 | Everything we need in this life to do his will
00:08:15.740 | or glorify his name and everything in the life to come
00:08:19.940 | that will enable us to know him fully
00:08:22.480 | and enjoy him perfectly and fully.
00:08:25.740 | So Romans 8, 32, you might say,
00:08:29.740 | is the most prominent promise in my heart,
00:08:34.220 | which provides at the same time,
00:08:37.500 | the deepest foundation for all the promises.
00:08:42.500 | And I should mention one last phase or cluster of texts
00:08:46.140 | that became very precious during my pastoral ministry,
00:08:50.780 | namely the promise of Jesus,
00:08:53.260 | I'll be with you always to the end of the age, Matthew 28, 20
00:08:57.060 | and the promise of Philippians 4, 19,
00:09:01.180 | my God will supply every need of yours
00:09:04.420 | according to his riches in glory in Christ.
00:09:07.620 | And second Corinthians 9, 8,
00:09:10.460 | God is able to make all grace abound to you
00:09:14.460 | so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times,
00:09:17.980 | you may abound in every good work.
00:09:22.100 | I think that little cluster,
00:09:24.420 | I think those became increasingly precious in the ministry
00:09:28.700 | because there's so many pressures,
00:09:30.860 | there's so many good works required of us in the ministry.
00:09:35.300 | We wonder if we will have the wherewithal
00:09:38.180 | to do what we're expected to do.
00:09:41.040 | And these promises all say, yes, we will,
00:09:44.960 | God will see to it.
00:09:47.240 | So just one, maybe one closing word of advice.
00:09:52.240 | I think it is good to memorize a handful of promises
00:09:58.480 | like these that are gloriously general enough
00:10:03.680 | to apply in every situation
00:10:07.480 | so that you can always call them to mind
00:10:10.200 | no matter what your situation for encouragement
00:10:12.400 | and protection and strength.
00:10:14.780 | But I think it is also good every morning
00:10:20.720 | to be reading through our Bibles,
00:10:23.080 | looking for fresh expressions of God's faithfulness,
00:10:28.080 | looking for fresh promises of God
00:10:31.660 | that we can take out of the text with us through that day
00:10:35.640 | as a particular appointed word of God for that day.
00:10:40.400 | It has been amazing in my life
00:10:43.360 | to watch how those promises that were appointed
00:10:46.720 | for my reading in the morning and for my soul
00:10:49.960 | have become appointed in ministry
00:10:52.880 | for the people I meet during the day.
00:10:55.120 | So hold fast to your Isaiah 41.10 for every situation
00:11:00.120 | and be learning every day fresh expressions
00:11:03.980 | of that same faithfulness.
00:11:06.140 | - Man, that's incredibly helpful and hope-giving
00:11:08.360 | to hear how those texts have influenced your life.
00:11:11.220 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:11:12.120 | And Romans 8.32 is one of the most incredible passages
00:11:14.880 | in the Bible.
00:11:15.700 | I would just encourage you to really get a hold
00:11:18.000 | of this solid logic of heaven.
00:11:20.620 | And to do so, see John Piper's 2012 sermon,
00:11:23.120 | which you can find by Googling the title,
00:11:24.800 | quote, "The Solid Logic of Heaven Holds," end quote.
00:11:28.380 | That's where the penny dropped for me
00:11:30.640 | when I heard that sermon.
00:11:31.540 | So get a hold of Romans 8.32,
00:11:34.000 | or rather, let Romans 8.32 get a hold of you,
00:11:37.600 | and you'll never be the same.
00:11:39.800 | Over at our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastor.
00:11:44.080 | John, you can explore all 1,250 or so of our episodes.
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00:11:59.280 | Well, we're gonna kick off next week
00:12:01.440 | with a little tiny question
00:12:03.320 | over what's the point of my life?
00:12:06.360 | Yeah, what's the point of you and me?
00:12:09.040 | Why do we exist?
00:12:10.760 | I mean, what more are you looking for in a podcast, really?
00:12:15.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:12:16.280 | Have a great weekend.
00:12:17.120 | We'll see you then.
00:12:17.940 | (upbeat music)
00:12:20.520 | (upbeat music)
00:12:23.100 | [BLANK_AUDIO]