Eight Essentials for Christian Living

00:00:04.000 | Today we look at one of John Piper's favorite Bible texts on the Christian life.

00:00:09.000 | The text that I'm thinking of is 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12.

00:00:14.000 | Pastor John doesn't talk about this text a lot, but when he does, you immediately sense its significance.

00:00:20.000 | He has mentioned it here on the podcast a few times.

00:00:23.000 | A while back, speaking of 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, he said,

00:00:27.000 | "I encourage everybody to meditate on every single phrase in those two verses."

00:00:35.000 | That was in APJ 1473 that he said that.

00:00:39.000 | And the text pops up on the podcast annually in early January whenever we talk about New Year's resolutions.

00:00:45.000 | That's because Pastor John calls it "the most important text in the Bible on resolutions."

00:00:52.000 | That's a claim he made in APJ 1415, and way back in APJ 246, he called it "a theology of resolutions in two verses."

00:01:03.000 | But this same text has year-round value because it offers us eight steps of sanctification,

00:01:08.000 | or eight indispensables for Christian living.

00:01:12.000 | As we see in today's episode in a great little sermon clip from 2012,

00:01:16.000 | here's Pastor John to explain 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12. Here he is.

00:01:23.000 | So let's read these two verses again. Verse 11.

00:01:27.000 | "To this end," and what he means by that in the preceding verses is,

00:01:33.000 | "so that you will be able to marvel at the Lord when he comes."

00:01:40.000 | "To this end, we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling

00:01:47.000 | and may fulfill every resolve for good," or good resolve,

00:01:52.000 | "and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,

00:02:01.000 | and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

00:02:10.000 | So, eight crucial things in those two verses.

00:02:15.000 | Number one, there is a calling of God on and in every believer. A calling.

00:02:25.000 | Verse 11, "that our God may make you worthy of his calling,"

00:02:30.000 | that is, the glorious destiny that he has for you.

00:02:35.000 | A destiny to be a part of his kingdom and to be a part of and shaped by, glorified by, his glory.

00:02:45.000 | Easiest place to see that's what it means is 1 Thessalonians 2.12, which goes like this.

00:02:51.000 | "We charge you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you to his own kingdom and glory."

00:03:03.000 | So the calling of every Christian is that we will be destined, we are destined,

00:03:09.000 | and we'll be there in God's kingdom and in his glory perfectly someday.

00:03:15.000 | So, your calling is to be in the kingdom of God, your calling is to share the glory of God,

00:03:21.000 | as will be increasingly clear as we get to that part of these two verses.

00:03:25.000 | That's number one, the calling of God.

00:03:27.000 | Number two, there is a being made worthy of the calling.

00:03:34.000 | Verse 11, "that our God may make you worthy of his calling."

00:03:41.000 | So that's what God is doing if you're a Christian.

00:03:43.000 | He's making you worthy of his calling.

00:03:47.000 | Being made worthy of something doesn't mean being made deserving of it.

00:03:59.000 | It means being made suitable for it or being made fitting or appropriate for it.

00:04:07.000 | If you know that the Queen of England has decided to come and stay in one of the bedrooms of your house,

00:04:17.000 | your thought will be, first, probably, "I don't deserve it, and the room certainly doesn't deserve it,"

00:04:25.000 | which would be true, but what you mean by, "I must make the room worthy of the Queen,"

00:04:32.000 | is that she's got the worth and the room needs some work.

00:04:37.000 | "I want to make the room suitable. I want to make the room fitting."

00:04:41.000 | She's already decided to come. It's not about deserving her coming.

00:04:47.000 | The Lord has put his favor on his people and said, "You're going to be in my kingdom.

00:04:53.000 | You're going to be my children. You're going to be there glorifying me."

00:04:58.000 | And then he goes about the business of suiting us out, fitting us for that destiny called being made worthy of our calling.

00:05:09.000 | That's number two. Number three, there is a fulfillment, therefore,

00:05:15.000 | in the exercise of that being made worthy of the calling.

00:05:19.000 | There's a fulfillment of our good resolves.

00:05:22.000 | Verse 11, "That our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every good resolve,"

00:05:31.000 | or every resolve for good.

00:05:34.000 | So the Christian life is a resolving life. It's a planning life. It's a purposing life.

00:05:41.000 | It's an intending life. God has given every one of you wills,

00:05:46.000 | and he intends for you to use your will to make plans and purposes and designs and intentions and resolves,

00:05:54.000 | to do something right and beautiful and good every hour of your day.

00:06:01.000 | That's why we have brains and wills, volition.

00:06:05.000 | And the question is, how do those resolves become real,

00:06:13.000 | turn into deeds, get fulfilled?

00:06:21.000 | And that's number four.

00:06:24.000 | By the power of God. Verse 11, "That our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill,"

00:06:34.000 | so God is fulfilling, "every resolve for good, every work of faith by his power."

00:06:42.000 | So our resolves become works by his power.

00:06:51.000 | And he intends to get the glory for the fulfillment of our resolves,

00:06:55.000 | and that's why he makes himself the giver of the power. The giver gets the glory.

00:07:01.000 | If you did your resolves in your own strength, you would get the glory, and you should.

00:07:08.000 | And if you depend on him to fulfill your resolves with his power, he gets the glory, and he should.

00:07:15.000 | That's the way he set it up.

00:07:18.000 | And so how do our resolves become acts?

00:07:23.000 | How does a resolve to do a right thing and not do a wrong thing become effective?

00:07:30.000 | God's power, that's how.

00:07:35.000 | So the Christian life is a life of supernatural power,

00:07:40.000 | coming in, moving out, and giving us the ability to fulfill our resolves.

00:07:49.000 | Number five, how do we tap into this power?

00:07:55.000 | How do we avail ourselves of the power?

00:07:59.000 | How do we depend upon the power?

00:08:04.000 | By faith. Verse 11.

00:08:07.000 | "That our God may make you worthy of his calling,

00:08:11.000 | and may fulfill every good resolve, every resolve for good, and every work of faith."

00:08:22.000 | When God fulfills by his power a good resolve, it becomes a work of faith.

00:08:28.000 | That's the way I'm taking the connection between fulfilling a resolve for good and a work of faith.

00:08:35.000 | Power of God enabling these to happen.

00:08:38.000 | When the power of God meets you in your good resolve,

00:08:43.000 | it meets you by making that resolve become a work, called now a work of faith,

00:08:49.000 | which shows how you tapped into that.

00:08:53.000 | Got it?

00:08:54.000 | It's a work of faith. You could call it a work of power, it's true.

00:08:58.000 | He's just bringing you into the picture now.

00:09:00.000 | He's already said God's power fulfills your resolves and turns them into fulfillment.

00:09:08.000 | That is works, deeds, acts.

00:09:11.000 | And then he adds, and those acts are acts of faith,

00:09:15.000 | which tells me exactly what my role is in availing myself of divine power

00:09:21.000 | to fulfill the resolves I have in life.

00:09:24.000 | Namely, I must trust him.

00:09:26.000 | I must trust his promise to give me power tonight to fulfill a resolve I have when I go home.

00:09:33.000 | That's what I have to do, is believe him, trust him.

00:09:37.000 | That's the plug into the power.

00:09:40.000 | The outlet and the electricity is his power, and the plug is my faith.

00:09:46.000 | I trust you. Click, power.

00:09:49.000 | The work of faith does. It gets in and power flows through it.

00:09:53.000 | And God has designed it that way, because when you're a little child,

00:09:57.000 | leaning on God for power to fulfill your resolves,

00:10:00.000 | he's going to get the glory, which is where we're going in just a moment.

00:10:05.000 | In fact, not a moment, a second.

00:10:08.000 | Number six.

00:10:10.000 | In this text, the name of Jesus is going to be glorified.

00:10:17.000 | Now we're at verse 12.

00:10:19.000 | When God fulfills our resolves through our faith and turns them into works of faith,

00:10:27.000 | Jesus gets glory.

00:10:29.000 | So verse 12, "So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you."

00:10:37.000 | So when God's power comes through your plug of faith

00:10:43.000 | and turns your resolves to do the right and to avoid the wrong

00:10:48.000 | into an act of faith, Jesus gets glory.

00:10:53.000 | Which must mean, since he hasn't been mentioned yet in these two verses,

00:11:01.000 | that Paul is assuming that the power that he calls God's power

00:11:08.000 | is power purchased and provided by Jesus,

00:11:14.000 | which is exactly what I argued for last week.

00:11:17.000 | When Christ dies, what he purchases for us

00:11:25.000 | is that God would now no longer be against us.

00:11:29.000 | His power is no longer devoted to our destruction,

00:11:32.000 | no longer devoted to our condemnation.

00:11:35.000 | All his power now, because of the cross and our connection with Jesus,

00:11:39.000 | is pouring on us for our good, not our destruction.

00:11:44.000 | So anybody who knows the gospel,

00:11:46.000 | and I hope that last Sunday's message hasn't ceased to be real for you,

00:11:52.000 | anybody who knows the gospel would know that it's so fitting

00:11:57.000 | that Paul would say here that Jesus' name would be glorified

00:12:02.000 | when God, by his power, comes into the life of imperfect people like me

00:12:08.000 | who don't deserve any help at all from him,

00:12:11.000 | and he takes my little puny half-baked vein, resolves to do right,

00:12:15.000 | and he makes them happen to some measure of good,

00:12:19.000 | Jesus gets glory.

00:12:21.000 | That's right.

00:12:23.000 | God gets glory too, but Jesus is named as the one who gets the glory.

00:12:29.000 | He's purchased that awesome sanctifying event

00:12:33.000 | that enables us to fulfill our resolve.

00:12:35.000 | Number seven, and we are glorified in him.

00:12:42.000 | So he's glorified in this process, and now it says we are too.

00:12:50.000 | So let's read that again.

00:12:52.000 | Verse 12, "So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,

00:12:58.000 | and you in him."

00:13:05.000 | So as he purchases and provides the power by covering all of our sin

00:13:12.000 | and providing all of our right standing with God,

00:13:19.000 | we are being conformed into Christ-likeness

00:13:24.000 | because our resolves for good are being fulfilled by faith in that,

00:13:29.000 | and the effect is that we too are becoming glorious with his glory.

00:13:36.000 | "Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed

00:13:38.000 | from one degree of glory to the next," 2 Corinthians 3, 18.

00:13:44.000 | "And oh for the day when that will be complete,

00:13:50.000 | in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,

00:13:53.000 | when we shall be changed, save to sin no more, hasten that day."

00:14:04.000 | Lastly, number eight, all of this is according to the grace

00:14:13.000 | of our God and the Lord Jesus.

00:14:17.000 | Go to verse 12, "So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,

00:14:24.000 | and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

00:14:33.000 | It is all, all seven of those steps, it is all of grace.

00:14:42.000 | Grace of our Father and the grace of our Lord Jesus.

00:14:47.000 | The power that comes to us moment by moment to fulfill our resolves for good

00:14:54.000 | is the power of grace, the extension of grace.

00:15:03.000 | So those are the eight crucial, indispensable, wonderful aspects,

00:15:11.000 | elements in verses 11 and 12.

00:15:14.000 | Let me try to sum them up.

00:15:17.000 | How do they work?

00:15:19.000 | Put them together in the order that they work,

00:15:22.000 | instead of just the order that they came.

00:15:24.000 | Paul starts, I mean ends, with the beginning, right?

00:15:28.000 | At the bottom of the Christian life is grace,

00:15:32.000 | and everything moves up from that foundation.

00:15:36.000 | If there were anything we could do down here beneath this

00:15:39.000 | to get under it and make it happen, it wouldn't be grace.

00:15:42.000 | That's the meaning of grace.

00:15:43.000 | So grace is free, and it comes to us in our total undeserving,

00:15:47.000 | and it starts to do good things for us.

00:15:51.000 | And so it's all of grace.

00:15:52.000 | So grace is at the bottom of the Christian life,

00:15:57.000 | and now up from that grace, God's power flows.

00:16:02.000 | And that power flows through your faith.

00:16:09.000 | If we were doing other texts, I could show you that the power,

00:16:12.000 | in fact, awakens that faith and then moves through it,

00:16:17.000 | awakens those resolves, and then fulfills them.

00:16:20.000 | But all it says here now, it's all we're going to talk about,

00:16:22.000 | is when you have a resolve to do right and do good,

00:16:26.000 | to honor God, to love people, to kill sin,

00:16:30.000 | that resolve, if it gets fulfilled, gets fulfilled

00:16:33.000 | by the power of God.

00:16:35.000 | And the way you tap into that power is by faith.

00:16:40.000 | And when you do, then Jesus is made to look glorious

00:16:46.000 | in your life, and you participate in the glorification

00:16:51.000 | of Jesus by becoming increasingly beautiful yourself.

00:16:57.000 | Somewhat in this life, unspeakably in the life to come.

00:17:05.000 | Eight indispensable elements for the Christian life.

00:17:08.000 | Incredible text.

00:17:09.000 | If you want to deep dive the podcast archive on 2 Thessalonians 1,

00:17:12.000 | verses 11 to 12, look for four other episodes in our archive,

00:17:16.000 | namely ABJ's 246, 367, 1415, and 1473.

00:17:23.000 | This clip was a clip that I pulled from a sermon

00:17:25.000 | Pastor John preached on November 17, 2012,

00:17:28.000 | titled "Living by Faith in Future Grace."

00:17:31.000 | The whole message is available online.

00:17:34.000 | If you have a sermon clip to share, email me.

00:17:36.000 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title,

00:17:38.000 | the time stamp of where the clip happens in the audio,

00:17:40.000 | and make a note of what stands out to you.

00:17:42.000 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email

00:17:44.000 | and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:17:47.000 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:17:51.000 | Well, the Apostle Paul commands husbands to not be harsh with their wives.

00:17:56.000 | He says that in Colossians 3:19.

00:17:58.000 | So what counsel would Pastor John have for husbands who lack this gentleness?

00:18:03.000 | We'll find out.

00:18:04.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:18:05.000 | We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John when we return on Friday.

00:18:09.000 | We'll see you then.

00:18:10.000 | [no audio]

00:18:13.000 | [no audio]

00:18:16.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Eight Essentials for Christian Living

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