Is the Christian Life Peace or War?

00:00:00.000 | Well, is a Christian life a life of peace or is the Christian life a life of warfare?

00:00:11.640 | It's a great question with a stunningly simple answer and it came in the form of a 2005 regional

00:00:17.360 | conference message from John Piper in Greenville, South Carolina.

00:00:21.720 | Here's Pastor John.

00:00:22.720 | "The Lord Jesus on the Damascus road says to Paul, 'I send you, I send you to open their

00:00:31.880 | eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they

00:00:39.280 | may receive forgiveness of sins.

00:00:41.600 | I send you to open their eyes.'"

00:00:45.480 | Right, right.

00:00:48.720 | Paul knew good and well God alone opens eyes.

00:00:54.160 | Second Timothy 4, 6, "The God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shown into

00:00:59.840 | our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

00:01:04.040 | Paul knew that.

00:01:05.040 | He wrote that.

00:01:06.240 | He knew that God alone can raise the dead.

00:01:10.640 | God alone can give hearing to the ear.

00:01:13.400 | God alone can give light, spiritual light to the blind eye and he makes humans an essential

00:01:20.680 | element, means in the process called evangelism.

00:01:25.560 | Or he makes you a key player in your fight for joy.

00:01:31.360 | It's his gift.

00:01:33.060 | He alone can give it and you must fight for it.

00:01:36.600 | Now that produces a certain modesty, I think, in the fight.

00:01:43.300 | When I say you must fight and only God can give, it should create a certain modesty in

00:01:51.760 | the fight.

00:01:53.760 | I use that phrase because it seems the best alternative to the presumption that comes

00:01:59.640 | with thinking, "I can make this happen.

00:02:01.960 | I can make this happen.

00:02:03.960 | He tells me to rejoice in the Lord and always rejoice.

00:02:07.600 | All right, if he tells me to do it, I'll do it."

00:02:10.480 | There's a certain presumption there that just doesn't fit with everything I've seen so far.

00:02:16.440 | Here's some texts that describe the modesty of the Christian claim on God.

00:02:23.360 | Proverbs 21, 31, "The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory belongs

00:02:30.400 | to the Lord."

00:02:31.400 | It's a certain modesty as you go into battle.

00:02:34.440 | I will make my horse ready.

00:02:36.720 | I will strap it tight.

00:02:38.640 | I will put my sword in my hand.

00:02:41.240 | I will get a good night's rest.

00:02:42.760 | I will eat breakfast properly.

00:02:44.760 | I will stoke the engines of my flame for God, but victory is in the hands of the Lord.

00:02:53.960 | Joy belongs to the Lord.

00:02:56.800 | Or Proverbs 19, 21, "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but the purpose of the

00:03:04.320 | Lord will stand."

00:03:06.760 | Be a planning people.

00:03:08.360 | Be planning churches.

00:03:09.640 | Oh, yes, don't live planless lives.

00:03:12.840 | Just be modest.

00:03:15.040 | Your plans may or may not happen, and God will decide.

00:03:19.520 | And be happy about that.

00:03:20.880 | Be totally happy about that.

00:03:23.940 | Or Psalm 127, 1, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

00:03:32.340 | Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain."

00:03:37.960 | Be a watchman and build a house, but just be modest.

00:03:42.840 | If your house gets built, God built it.

00:03:44.800 | And if nobody attacks the city, God kept them from attacking the city.

00:03:49.960 | We have a place in causality, whether it's our joy, guiding ourselves, growing a church,

00:03:58.720 | leading someone to Christ.

00:04:00.160 | We have an indispensable place on planet Earth.

00:04:03.880 | He wouldn't have created us if there were no reason for us to be.

00:04:08.440 | But it is a modest place that ascribes to God the final say in whether I'm happy today

00:04:17.120 | or not.

00:04:18.800 | We must not begrudge to God the seasons of winter that he may will for us when we have

00:04:27.100 | done all we can do to make ourselves as happy as we should be, and we're not.

00:04:33.960 | There are several things that this modesty accomplishes.

00:04:37.840 | One, it guards me from thinking that I decisively produce the joy that God demands, and therefore

00:04:45.560 | life becomes a series of techniques.

00:04:48.200 | I think one of the reasons in America that we are a technique people, I mean, just open

00:04:53.460 | magazine after magazine, mail after mail, here's the new technique for your marriage

00:04:58.340 | and the new technique for living the victorious Christian life and the new technique for growing

00:05:02.800 | the church and technique, technique, technique.

00:05:06.060 | The reason we are technilogical people, whatever that word is, is because we're not modest.

00:05:14.660 | We don't really emotionally embrace the fact that God has given us some things to do, but

00:05:23.980 | in the end, we don't have control.

00:05:26.220 | God has control.

00:05:28.140 | That removes the, "I'm an American.

00:05:31.500 | I got to have results, so I will get people saved.

00:05:34.500 | And the way to get them saved, if I can't make them saved, is I'll develop a technique

00:05:38.300 | that gets them saved on the beach immediately."

00:05:43.380 | And that's where a lot of our evangelistic strategies have come from, a lack of submission

00:05:48.820 | to God's sovereignty, a lack of modesty, and therefore the drive to produce managerial

00:05:55.780 | techniques that make things happen ourselves.

00:05:59.700 | That's one thing this view will help you avoid.

00:06:03.140 | The second thing is that it will keep you from falling into legalism, thinking that

00:06:10.580 | you can do this in order to earn God's favor.

00:06:13.580 | You got to have God's favor first before you can do this.

00:06:17.540 | We'll get there in a minute.

00:06:19.500 | The third thing it does is help balance.

00:06:21.340 | I don't know if you've ever struggled with this like I and people in my church do, the

00:06:27.620 | balance between life as fight and life as rest.

00:06:32.820 | Matthew 7, 14, "The gate is narrow, the way is hard that leads to life, and those who

00:06:39.940 | find it are few."

00:06:40.940 | So the Christian life is hard, right?

00:06:42.860 | It's hard.

00:06:43.860 | It's a fight.

00:06:44.860 | It's war.

00:06:45.860 | That's one thing.

00:06:46.860 | And if that's the only way you think, you're probably going to be a sick person because

00:06:51.420 | you also know another thing Jesus said in Matthew.

00:06:54.620 | That's Matthew 7.

00:06:56.060 | Always keep Matthew 11 and 7 together.

00:06:58.060 | Seven, 11.

00:06:59.060 | You're going to remember it that way.

00:07:02.260 | What did he say in chapter 11?

00:07:03.540 | "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you," say it, "rest

00:07:09.900 | and take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

00:07:14.460 | For I'm meek and lowly in heart and you'll find rest for your soul."

00:07:18.540 | Well, Jesus, which is it?

00:07:22.900 | Rest or hard?

00:07:24.900 | Narrow?

00:07:25.900 | Am I in your arms just kind of being brought to heaven or am I swimming and stumbling and

00:07:32.540 | working and climbing and clawing?

00:07:35.900 | Is it restful to be a Christian or is it war to be a Christian?

00:07:40.220 | And the answer is it's both.

00:07:42.000 | And here's the way they come together.

00:07:44.300 | The war is to rest in the right place.

00:07:49.620 | And the whole world is telling you to rest in all the wrong places.

00:07:54.380 | Rest in money.

00:07:55.680 | Rest in success.

00:07:56.780 | Rest in your looks.

00:07:58.100 | Rest in your strength.

00:07:59.780 | Rest in your business.

00:08:02.900 | The world wants you to find your satisfaction, your restfulness, your peacefulness in insurance,

00:08:09.380 | padlocks, cruises, big fat retirement, big portfolio.

00:08:16.180 | These are all the restfulness commendations of the world.

00:08:21.160 | And the war is to rest in the right place.

00:08:24.780 | And it just happens to be hard to rest for Christians who are worldly.

00:08:31.620 | And another reason that I stress this modesty is that it does give all glory to God.

00:08:40.220 | That is so good, important, and culturally revolutionary.

00:08:43.420 | That was John Piper from his 2005 regional conference message titled "When I Don't Desire

00:08:48.460 | God, Part 3" preached in Greenville, South Carolina.

00:08:52.160 | This golden clip was found and sent in to us by Paul DiVincenzo.

00:08:55.260 | Thank you, Paul, for the clip.

00:08:57.340 | You can find the full message, of course, at DesiringGod.org.

00:09:00.580 | On Wednesdays, we dip into the sermon archives and play your favorite clips.

00:09:03.500 | If you have a clip that you love and you want to share with us, email me the name of the

00:09:07.300 | sermon and a timestamp of when and where the clip occurs in the audio.

00:09:11.480 | If we post your clip, we'll give you credit, of course.

00:09:13.380 | Send me an email at AspastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:09:16.380 | Well, as we often do, we address painful questions of life and tomorrow a listener who is drifting

00:09:23.580 | away from God.

00:09:24.580 | He wants John Piper's counsel and his help.

00:09:27.260 | You won't want to miss this one.

00:09:28.860 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:09:30.140 | I'll see you tomorrow on the Aspastor John Podcast.

00:09:32.700 | [END]

00:09:33.700 | Aspastor John Podcast #12 – Desiring God

00:09:34.700 | Page 2 of 9

00:09:34.700 | 1.

00:09:35.700 | Desiring God

00:09:36.700 | 2.

00:09:37.700 | Desiring God 3.

00:09:38.700 | Desiring God 4.

00:09:39.700 | Desiring God 5.

00:09:40.700 | Desiring God 6.

Is the Christian Life Peace or War?

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