Our Theology Is Meant to Flatten Us
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, pride is a dangerous sin.
00:00:08.720 | It's one of the seven deadly sins.
00:00:11.260 | So when you're a notable person who gets noticed
00:00:13.320 | and approached by strangers in restaurants and in airports,
00:00:16.200 | how do you stay humble?
00:00:18.400 | This was a question asked of Pastor John
00:00:20.240 | at the Desiring God National Conference in October of 2010.
00:00:24.380 | And to raise the stakes a little bit higher,
00:00:26.160 | Pastor John had just been presented with a festrift.
00:00:29.560 | It was a large book published in his honor
00:00:32.120 | as a surprise gift.
00:00:33.680 | It's titled "For the Fame of His Name."
00:00:36.260 | And in the context of a panel discussion at the conference,
00:00:39.200 | here's how Pastor John answered the question
00:00:41.180 | of how to stay humble when God is blessing your ministry.
00:00:44.960 | - Oh my.
00:00:47.360 | Probably the first thing to say is that
00:00:53.400 | God is in charge of keeping his people humble, not us.
00:00:59.160 | The Bible does say,
00:01:00.000 | "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
00:01:02.720 | but as in almost all other things,
00:01:05.380 | command what you will and give what you command."
00:01:08.160 | So you may, I think, expect that God will deal roughly
00:01:13.160 | with you if he has to in order to remind you
00:01:18.660 | that you're not God and that you are desperately
00:01:22.240 | in need of him.
00:01:23.640 | And perhaps it's no accident that I received this book
00:01:29.640 | of essays in the middle of a leave of absence,
00:01:34.640 | taken because of pain.
00:01:37.560 | Got an accident?
00:01:39.000 | That it worked out that way?
00:01:39.920 | They've been working on it for three years?
00:01:41.880 | And that there are issues in my family,
00:01:45.240 | in my wider family, in my soul,
00:01:47.800 | that are such that I wanted to step back
00:01:50.600 | and look at all of them and work on all of them.
00:01:53.000 | That wasn't my idea to do this.
00:01:57.640 | It was things that come up.
00:01:59.400 | I felt as I sat there,
00:02:03.440 | these folks don't know me well enough.
00:02:05.480 | (laughs)
00:02:07.400 | And they don't.
00:02:08.560 | They don't know what goes on in our living room
00:02:11.040 | and bedroom and kitchen.
00:02:13.620 | And so you know, and your wife knows,
00:02:17.920 | and your children know,
00:02:20.040 | and you feel a sense of disjunction between public praise
00:02:25.540 | and private imperfections.
00:02:28.940 | And that's God's doing, that he performs that.
00:02:32.140 | Then there are these natural limitations
00:02:34.540 | that the people closest around me know that I have.
00:02:38.300 | And I don't know why God has been pleased
00:02:40.620 | to release influence through me the way he has
00:02:45.620 | when I look at the limitations.
00:02:49.580 | I can't read faster than I can talk.
00:02:52.620 | Everybody thinks I'm a scholar.
00:02:53.940 | I'm not a scholar.
00:02:56.260 | (laughs)
00:02:58.340 | I feel like they're gonna wake up and say,
00:03:03.180 | "What did we just do?"
00:03:04.900 | (audience laughs)
00:03:07.740 | I have learned to navigate my limitations
00:03:15.020 | and just do the few things I can do as well as I can.
00:03:23.140 | And I'm always thinking about what I can't do.
00:03:28.140 | I just wake up in the morning and think what I can't do.
00:03:32.700 | So God, I think, fits us with weaknesses.
00:03:37.700 | He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death.
00:03:42.620 | He leads us in his providence, yes, even in and out of sin,
00:03:47.620 | and does what he has to do to break us.
00:03:53.460 | So that's the first principle.
00:03:56.020 | God is in charge of keeping us humble,
00:03:57.940 | and he loves us so much, Hebrews 12,
00:04:02.220 | that if you are a child and you are not yet disciplined,
00:04:05.820 | you may be a bastard.
00:04:08.020 | Those are strong words.
00:04:10.620 | If you haven't been spanked hard enough to come to blood,
00:04:13.540 | then maybe you're not even a child.
00:04:17.060 | So that's the way he works.
00:04:18.740 | The second thing I would say is that,
00:04:23.340 | I'll just leave it at two.
00:04:24.660 | Let's say it big, then let's say it focused.
00:04:29.140 | We here, we leaders here,
00:04:32.220 | believe in a certain vision of God's sovereign grace.
00:04:37.220 | There's not a thing in you or me
00:04:44.100 | that inclined God to choose you for himself.
00:04:47.500 | Nothing.
00:04:48.580 | There's not a thing in you that inclined God
00:04:53.620 | to cause you to be born again.
00:04:56.660 | Nothing.
00:04:57.500 | There's not a thing in you
00:05:01.340 | that secures your eternal destiny.
00:05:07.540 | Nothing.
00:05:09.660 | It is totally free.
00:05:12.700 | This is our theology.
00:05:16.300 | Unconditional election, unconditional regeneration,
00:05:21.300 | unconditional propitiation,
00:05:25.660 | conditional justification, faith.
00:05:30.860 | And that's a gift.
00:05:32.020 | Our theology is meant to flatten us.
00:05:37.340 | 1 Corinthians 1, 29 and 30.
00:05:41.420 | All these things, not many of you were wise,
00:05:44.300 | not many of you were high born.
00:05:46.900 | Why?
00:05:47.740 | So that no one would boast in the presence of God.
00:05:50.980 | Let him who boasts finish it.
00:05:52.740 | That's weak.
00:05:55.140 | - Boast of the Lord.
00:05:58.020 | - Because not all of you are there.
00:06:01.180 | Let him who boasts boast in the Lord
00:06:04.420 | that no flesh might boast in the presence of God.
00:06:07.060 | Salvation is designed in a way
00:06:10.100 | as to cut the legs out from under all human boasting.
00:06:14.940 | It's designed that way.
00:06:17.100 | That's what this conference is about.
00:06:19.020 | That's what the New Calvinism is about.
00:06:23.140 | It's about smashing human pride
00:06:25.460 | and getting glory for God.
00:06:28.220 | Now I said, that's the big picture.
00:06:29.820 | The narrow picture is Christ crucified.
00:06:33.500 | What the most important event in human history
00:06:38.580 | is the death of the Son of God.
00:06:40.940 | What's the meaning of the death of the Son of God?
00:06:43.580 | It means I am unspeakably lost.
00:06:47.980 | It took that much to save me.
00:06:53.340 | Anybody that lives near the cross
00:06:57.700 | isn't gonna put his thumbs in his armpits and strut.
00:07:02.700 | Not gonna brag about his stuff.
00:07:06.660 | Not gonna talk a lot about his achievements.
00:07:09.860 | He's just looking at that incredible horror
00:07:13.180 | and saying, that's how corrupt I am.
00:07:17.500 | And the cross has another message.
00:07:20.900 | It's good news.
00:07:25.300 | That's how much I'm loved.
00:07:26.780 | And it's free.
00:07:30.580 | The biggest challenge theologically
00:07:32.620 | and experientially for us is to feel loved
00:07:37.180 | unworthily.
00:07:38.020 | They get up in the morning, be thrilled to be alive
00:07:42.100 | and to be thrilled to know God totally undeservingly.
00:07:46.380 | That's the challenge.
00:07:48.420 | Because I'm wired to want to feel thrilled
00:07:51.860 | because I got a book
00:07:54.460 | or had a conference or gave a message.
00:08:00.860 | The constant clawing at my ego
00:08:04.220 | to find my meaning and my significance
00:08:07.940 | in other people's reckoning of what I've done.
00:08:10.620 | So these guys have set me up terribly.
00:08:13.340 | Right?
00:08:14.180 | But like David said, you deal with it.
00:08:20.140 | So you're watching me just process this thing.
00:08:26.260 | So those three things,
00:08:27.700 | God is gonna do it whether you want him to or not.
00:08:30.820 | He's just gonna flatten you.
00:08:32.780 | Your marriage may shatter totally
00:08:35.220 | or already did, right?
00:08:37.540 | Or your kids are gonna just go wacko on you.
00:08:42.260 | Or you're gonna get cancer.
00:08:45.300 | Or you're gonna lose your job.
00:08:47.300 | He'll do whatever he has to do.
00:08:50.380 | Just flatten you so that you are desperate before him.
00:08:55.020 | And then secondly, he's gonna work
00:08:56.620 | through a conference like this
00:08:58.060 | and books here and there and movements
00:09:00.100 | to get you a theology.
00:09:02.620 | With him so massively at the center,
00:09:05.300 | it never occurred to you to put yourself there.
00:09:08.140 | And then he's gonna take you to the cross
00:09:10.220 | over and over and over again
00:09:12.740 | to remind you how unsavable you are
00:09:16.780 | apart from that horrific crucifixion
00:09:20.380 | and how much you are amazingly loved.
00:09:25.020 | Something like that.
00:09:26.700 | (audience laughing)
00:09:29.700 | (audience applauding)
00:09:33.260 | - Amen, it all goes back to the cross.
00:09:36.260 | This excerpt was taken from the speaker panel
00:09:38.700 | at the Desiring God 2010 National Conference.
00:09:42.060 | And the book I mentioned earlier
00:09:43.460 | that was presented as a surprise gift
00:09:45.220 | to Pastor John at the conference
00:09:46.460 | is titled For the Fame of God's Name,
00:09:49.620 | Essays in Honor of John Piper.
00:09:52.140 | And you can download the book free of charge at our site,
00:09:55.100 | desiringgod.org/books.
00:09:59.020 | And there you can find it.
00:10:00.140 | The title again is For the Fame of God's Name,
00:10:03.180 | Essays in Honor of John Piper.
00:10:05.620 | This excellent audio clip was sent to us
00:10:07.160 | by listener Rebecca Kim.
00:10:08.980 | Thank you, Rebecca, for this clip.
00:10:11.340 | And we're gonna be back tomorrow.
00:10:12.580 | We're gonna talk about parenting tomorrow.
00:10:14.700 | Does Proverbs promise us that if we raise our kids right,
00:10:17.560 | they will not fall away from the faith as adults?
00:10:21.060 | John Piper will respond tomorrow.
00:10:22.660 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:23.780 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John Podcast.
00:10:26.380 | (upbeat music)
00:10:28.960 | (upbeat music)
00:10:31.540 | [BLANK_AUDIO]