Christ Reigns over Every Inch
00:00:00.000 | There's really nothing more glorious than to know that Christ reigns over my life.
00:00:09.680 | He reigns over this world, He reigns over the cosmos, over every creature and over every
00:00:14.720 | power in creation.
00:00:17.300 | So much of the Christian life is rediscovering and re-savoring this fundamental truth that
00:00:21.760 | everything hangs on Jesus.
00:00:24.000 | In his conference message, "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Part 2," delivered on September
00:00:28.960 | 26, 2004, Pastor John reiterates this point with the proper rhetorical flair.
00:00:35.160 | Here's a clip of what he said.
00:00:37.920 | My prayer is that you will know, that you will press on to know the supremacy of Christ,
00:00:48.360 | the supremacy of His deity, equal with God the Father in all of His attributes, the radiance
00:00:55.260 | of His glory and the exact image of His nature.
00:01:01.200 | The supremacy of His eternality that makes the mind want to explode with the imponderable
00:01:09.520 | thought that Jesus Christ never had a beginning.
00:01:16.120 | He is simply there.
00:01:20.600 | Absolute reality with which we reckon we must rise to the supremacy of His eternality
00:01:29.980 | while all the universe, including this building in your body and this earth and all the galaxies
00:01:36.460 | are fragile, contingent, like a shadow in comparison to the substance of Jesus Christ.
00:01:45.540 | We must know the supremacy of His never-changing constancy.
00:01:50.700 | Oh, to have virtues that never change, a character whose commitment is constant yesterday, today,
00:01:59.260 | and forever.
00:02:00.260 | Let us know the supremacy of His constancy and let us know the supremacy of His knowledge
00:02:06.500 | that makes the Library of Congress look like a matchbox and makes all the information on
00:02:13.980 | the internet look like a 1940's farmer's almanac and makes all of quantum physics and everything
00:02:23.340 | that Stephen Hawking has ever dreamed look like a first-grade reader.
00:02:28.840 | We must know the supremacy of the knowledge of our Lord.
00:02:34.700 | We must know the supremacy of His wisdom that has never been perplexed by any problem whatsoever,
00:02:42.500 | nor can He be counseled by any person or any being in the universe.
00:02:48.420 | We must know the supremacy of His authority.
00:02:52.820 | All authority is mine in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
00:02:58.420 | No change.
00:03:00.100 | All authority.
00:03:01.980 | Changing times and seasons, removing kings, setting up kings, doing according to His will
00:03:07.260 | in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can stay His hand or
00:03:12.580 | say to Him, "What have you done?"
00:03:14.900 | We must know the supremacy of His providence, without which not a single bird in the extended
00:03:22.480 | reaches of the Amazon forest has ever fallen off of any limb and without which not one
00:03:29.660 | hair turns white or black.
00:03:32.980 | We must know the providence of Jesus.
00:03:36.220 | We must know the supremacy of His Word, which upholds the universe by the Word of His power.
00:03:43.060 | All the galaxies, molecules, atoms, and subatomic reality nobody has yet dreamed of down there
00:03:51.140 | where no one has yet looked.
00:03:53.460 | We must know the supremacy of His power to walk on water and cleanse lepers and heal
00:03:59.580 | the lame and open the eyes of the blind and open the ears of the deaf and cause storms
00:04:05.580 | to cease and with two words to raise the dead, "Lazarus, come forth," or one word to raise
00:04:11.860 | the dead.
00:04:12.860 | "In your blood," I said to you, "live."
00:04:15.820 | We must know the supremacy of His power.
00:04:19.420 | We must know the supremacy of His purity.
00:04:22.180 | He never sinned.
00:04:23.420 | He never sinned.
00:04:25.020 | He never had one millisecond of a bad attitude or a sinful lust.
00:04:31.400 | We must know the supremacy of His trustworthiness.
00:04:35.240 | He never breaks a promise.
00:04:37.180 | He always keeps His Word absolutely without fail.
00:04:41.460 | We must know the supremacy of His justice.
00:04:44.340 | He will render all accounts settled in the end in the universe either on the cross or
00:04:52.380 | in hell.
00:04:53.460 | No injustice will remain when Christ is finished with His supreme justice.
00:04:59.220 | We must know the supremacy of His patience.
00:05:02.400 | He has endured you and me for decades.
00:05:05.800 | He has endured this city and brings the sun.
00:05:08.980 | Can you imagine why the sun rose on this city this morning, this wicked city, this world
00:05:15.460 | so full of us-type sinners and He makes paradise rise in the sky in Minneapolis?
00:05:22.520 | What kind of patience are we dealing with here?
00:05:26.300 | We must know the supremacy of His servant-like sovereign obedience.
00:05:31.760 | Kept every one of His Father's commands absolutely and in the end embraced the cross with total
00:05:38.980 | willingness.
00:05:40.540 | We must know the supremacy of His meekness and lowliness and tenderness.
00:05:45.560 | He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering flax.
00:05:53.040 | We must know the supremacy of His wrath.
00:05:56.480 | One day it will explode on this world from heaven such that all who have rejected Him
00:06:04.040 | will call for rocks to crush their brain lest they have to face the wrath of the Lamb.
00:06:10.920 | We must know this when I look at the beheadings.
00:06:15.960 | And I hear someone ask, "Where is your supreme Christ?"
00:06:19.840 | My answer is really easy.
00:06:22.160 | He is in heaven storing up almighty wrath in fury to pour out on all those who commit
00:06:29.680 | such sins.
00:06:30.680 | That's where He is and you better get right with Him and repent or you will all likewise
00:06:37.120 | perish.
00:06:38.120 | It's not a hard question to answer biblically.
00:06:41.680 | We must know the supremacy of His grace which gives to the spiritually dead rebels like
00:06:48.220 | us life, wakens faith in hellbound haters of God, justifies the ungodly with His own
00:06:58.520 | righteousness.
00:07:00.280 | We must know the supremacy of His love which dies for us while we are yet sinners and gives
00:07:06.940 | to the absolutely undeserving the ability for ever increasing joy in making much of
00:07:14.640 | Him.
00:07:15.640 | We must know the supremacy of His gladness.
00:07:20.160 | In the fellowship of the Trinity, infinite power, infinite energy, infinite joy rising,
00:07:26.640 | spilling over in the creation of a universe and becoming for you one day an inheritance
00:07:33.100 | for every struggling saint.
00:07:36.240 | We must know.
00:07:38.400 | This is what we were made for.
00:07:41.840 | Press on to know the Lord.
00:07:44.440 | We are made to know Christ.
00:07:47.880 | We're not made to do little diddly things.
00:07:50.840 | We're made to know this massive Christ.
00:07:53.380 | This world is a little two second slice and then with Him or not forever.
00:07:58.920 | It's what we are created to know and do and be about and when we know Him in those ways
00:08:09.000 | we have begun to know the outskirts of His supremacy for time would fail to speak of
00:08:16.840 | His supreme severity and invincibility and dignity and simplicity and complexity and
00:08:25.280 | resoluteness and calmness and depth and courage.
00:08:29.600 | If there is anything admirable, if there is anything worthy of praise in all the universe,
00:08:35.200 | it is summed up in Jesus Christ.
00:08:39.000 | He is always infinitely admirable in everything and over everything supreme.
00:08:47.060 | Over all galaxies and endless reaches of space.
00:08:51.900 | Over the earth from the top of Mount Everest, 29,000 feet up to the bottom of the Pacific
00:08:57.560 | Ocean, 36,000 feet down in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Rim.
00:09:03.760 | He is sovereign and supreme over all plants and animals from the peaceful blue whale to
00:09:11.040 | the microscopic killer viruses.
00:09:14.000 | He is supreme over all weather and all movements of the earth, hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons,
00:09:21.600 | earthquakes, avalanches, floods, snow, rain, sleet.
00:09:25.400 | He is supreme over all chemical processes that heal or destroy cancer, AIDS, malaria,
00:09:33.920 | flu, and all the amazing grace of antibiotics and a thousand healing drugs that we do not
00:09:41.680 | deserve.
00:09:42.760 | He is supreme over all countries and governments and armies.
00:09:46.920 | He is supreme over al-Qaeda and the terrorists and the kidnappings and the suicide bombings
00:09:52.120 | and the beheadings.
00:09:53.360 | He is supreme over bin Laden and al-Zarqawi.
00:09:57.200 | He is supreme over all nuclear threats from Iran and Russia and North Korea.
00:10:02.680 | He is supreme over politics and elections and debates on Thursday.
00:10:08.320 | He's supreme over media and news and entertainment and sports and leisure.
00:10:13.840 | He's supreme over all education in universities, no matter what they teach.
00:10:19.120 | And he's supreme over all scholarship and science and research.
00:10:22.640 | He's supreme over all business and finance and industry and manufacturing and transportation.
00:10:29.080 | And he's supreme over the internet and all informational systems.
00:10:32.960 | As Abraham Kuyper famously said, and many of you know, "There is not one square inch
00:10:39.920 | on planet earth over which the risen Christ does not say, 'Mine!'
00:10:45.920 | And I rule it.
00:10:47.480 | I am supreme over it."
00:10:50.960 | So good.
00:10:51.960 | That's it from the conference message, "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Part 2," delivered
00:10:55.360 | on September 26, 2004.
00:10:57.160 | Thank you to podcast listener Scott Sherrick, who suggested this clip.
00:11:01.480 | We have this sermon and over 1,200 other messages just like it from John Piper in our archive
00:11:07.160 | at DesiringGod.org.
00:11:08.160 | Check it out.
00:11:09.680 | On Wednesdays, we dip into the archive to pull out a classic quote for the podcast.
00:11:13.160 | And I welcome your suggestions.
00:11:14.480 | Like Scott, if you have a favorite John Piper sermon clip, please send it to us.
00:11:18.860 | Send us the name of the sermon if possible and the timestamp of when and where the clip
00:11:22.820 | occurs in the audio recording.
00:11:25.020 | Please put the phrase "sermon clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to
00:11:28.940 | AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:11:32.940 | We are back tomorrow with a new episode answering perhaps the most frequently asked question
00:11:37.660 | we have received in the last several months.
00:11:41.020 | Does Pastor John regret partnering with Mark Driscoll?
00:11:44.300 | We'll find out tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:11:46.500 | We'll see you then.
00:11:46.940 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:11:55.540 | [ Silence ]