Gospel Hope for Cultural Pessimists

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Here's a relevant and timely question from Alex.

00:00:08.040 | Pastor John, what do you do when your pastor

00:00:10.120 | is fixated and preoccupied with all the negative

00:00:13.120 | state of affairs in the world today?

00:00:15.320 | When he is constantly telling the congregation

00:00:17.360 | that Jesus must come soon in order to stem

00:00:20.640 | the moral collapse of society,

00:00:23.140 | and that the government is to be blamed,

00:00:24.760 | and other pastors who are not preaching

00:00:26.280 | against societal evils are to be blamed as well.

00:00:29.660 | Any thoughts for Alex in how he thinks through this issue?

00:00:32.760 | - Any thoughts?

00:00:33.720 | (laughing)

00:00:35.080 | Hmm, lots of thoughts.

00:00:38.120 | Like, we don't know when Jesus is coming back,

00:00:43.120 | and there have always been cultural collapses in history,

00:00:49.520 | worse than the one we're in,

00:00:51.600 | great changes in Christian civilization

00:00:54.920 | so that what we're experiencing now

00:00:57.440 | is no more apocalyptic, say, than the destruction

00:01:00.360 | of a thousand years of Christian history in the Near East.

00:01:03.760 | I just read Philip Jenkins' "The Lost History

00:01:06.680 | of Christianity" a few months ago, and good night.

00:01:10.840 | Oh my, does everybody need to realize

00:01:14.160 | the sovereignty of God in the flow and the scope of history?

00:01:17.820 | What a devastating thing, as whole Christian cultures

00:01:22.020 | vanished in the Near East a thousand years ago,

00:01:26.000 | which would have appeared more apocalyptic

00:01:28.800 | than anything we're in now.

00:01:30.720 | So that's my first thought.

00:01:31.800 | An alarmist approach toward eschatology

00:01:35.680 | is usually historically naive.

00:01:38.720 | By all means, let's always, always, always be vigilant

00:01:43.720 | and watchful and mindful of the glorious coming

00:01:47.540 | of the Lord Jesus, He's gonna arrive.

00:01:49.640 | He's going to arrive suddenly

00:01:51.720 | when the Father has appointed it,

00:01:54.960 | and nobody's gonna be able to nail that

00:01:57.840 | with their prediction.

00:01:59.400 | But that's not my main thought in responding to this,

00:02:02.400 | and I don't think that's really

00:02:04.000 | the questioner's main concern.

00:02:06.340 | My main concern is how, and I may be guilty of this myself,

00:02:11.340 | how do we maintain the right balance

00:02:16.560 | between weeping for sin and the misery

00:02:20.680 | of the world around us, on the one hand,

00:02:23.280 | and joy because of what Christ has done for us

00:02:28.000 | and who He is and what He's promised now and forever,

00:02:31.160 | and what's gonna happen to this world ultimately?

00:02:33.160 | How do we put those together?

00:02:35.920 | That's the great challenge for the pastor

00:02:38.400 | and really for all Christians,

00:02:40.520 | but especially leaders who are charged

00:02:43.520 | with setting the tone of a people.

00:02:46.680 | So here are some thoughts about that.

00:02:49.760 | Whatever measure of pessimism a pastor may feel

00:02:53.800 | or I may feel about our own society as Christians,

00:02:58.800 | we should be long-term optimists.

00:03:03.720 | And I think premillennialists and amillennialists

00:03:08.480 | can say this with as much or more confidence

00:03:12.600 | than postmillennialists,

00:03:14.760 | though everybody can say it in those three camps.

00:03:17.280 | Sooner or later, Christ is in fact going to break in

00:03:22.280 | to this world and put everything right.

00:03:26.360 | He is going to cast the weeds into outer darkness,

00:03:30.800 | and He's going to establish His kingdom,

00:03:33.760 | and the world will be full of the glory of the Lord,

00:03:37.580 | like the waters cover the sea,

00:03:39.120 | and righteousness and justice and peace will kiss

00:03:43.120 | all for the glory of Christ.

00:03:44.700 | That's coming, and we should be deeply,

00:03:47.680 | deeply confident and optimistic about it.

00:03:50.820 | Second thought is that we must believe

00:03:55.200 | in the sovereignty of God as the Bible teaches it.

00:03:57.980 | How easy it is to put the sovereignty of God to the side

00:04:02.360 | while lamenting the miseries and wickedness of this world.

00:04:05.540 | God is in charge of the world.

00:04:08.980 | This is one of the great benefits

00:04:12.260 | of reading the whole Bible cover to cover every year.

00:04:15.160 | I am so thankful I've done that for, what, 30 years?

00:04:18.320 | I don't know.

00:04:19.220 | You watch the terrible sweep of evil in the world,

00:04:24.020 | and the Bible portrays it better than anybody.

00:04:27.180 | The sweep of evil from century to century in the world,

00:04:32.180 | and you have this rugged, unwavering, biblical perspective

00:04:38.360 | that God is on His throne and is in charge

00:04:43.360 | over the world, and evil does not, will not triumph.

00:04:49.020 | So that note must be struck.

00:04:50.660 | The sovereignty of God by a pastor must be struck over

00:04:54.900 | and over again because his people are gonna start losing it

00:04:58.540 | as things get bad.

00:05:00.500 | Third thought is that every pastor

00:05:03.280 | should be a Christian hedonist,

00:05:04.960 | whether he embraces the term or not.

00:05:08.000 | That means he should see the pursuit of joy in God

00:05:13.000 | as an essential way for him and his people

00:05:18.940 | to glorify God in every circumstance.

00:05:21.720 | And if it's essential, and I've argued all over the place

00:05:25.380 | that it is, if it's an essential way to glorify God,

00:05:29.220 | then it must be highlighted in his ministry

00:05:32.300 | over and over again because people tend to drift away

00:05:36.380 | from joy in Christ as circumstances get bleak.

00:05:39.960 | We all do, and pastors are charged,

00:05:43.060 | help your people not drift from joy in Christ

00:05:47.000 | in the worst of times.

00:05:49.220 | Joy in Christ in those circumstances is what glorifies Christ.

00:05:54.220 | That's the essence of Christian hedonism.

00:05:57.220 | Fourth thought, which is very related to the third,

00:05:59.720 | and yet I think deserves a special focus,

00:06:03.380 | 2 Corinthians 6.10, "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing."

00:06:08.380 | In other words, no matter how bad it gets,

00:06:11.960 | as sorrow mounts up upon sorrow,

00:06:14.860 | nevertheless, there will always be Christian rejoicing.

00:06:18.300 | Pastors are duty-bound to help their people

00:06:21.600 | understand that phrase and live it,

00:06:24.460 | and see why it is and model it for them.

00:06:29.460 | To be sure, let no one misunderstand,

00:06:32.980 | to be sure, we weep with those who weep.

00:06:36.380 | We groan over the wickedness of our cities.

00:06:39.600 | If we don't, we're guilty.

00:06:41.660 | But in all our weeping, all our groaning,

00:06:45.020 | there is an indomitable joy.

00:06:48.500 | If there's not, then the Bible is delivering

00:06:52.920 | a false message, and our gospel is not triumphant.

00:06:57.920 | And maybe one more.

00:07:00.980 | Fifth, final thought for pastors from Hebrews 13.17.

00:07:05.980 | It says that pastors are keeping watch over your souls,

00:07:12.940 | namely keeping watch over the flock in their charge,

00:07:17.540 | and then it says, "Let them do this with joy,

00:07:22.180 | "not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage

00:07:26.620 | "to you, to the people."

00:07:28.320 | Now, what pastors should get from that sentence,

00:07:30.620 | Hebrews 13.17, is that if they go about their work

00:07:35.260 | of preaching and pastoral care with groaning,

00:07:38.860 | and a gloomy demeanor, because of the state of the world,

00:07:43.300 | it will be of no advantage to the people.

00:07:47.140 | A gloomy pastor makes a sick congregation.

00:07:51.500 | So, let's pray for our pastors, and for ourselves,

00:07:56.940 | one, that God would make them and us long-term optimists.

00:08:01.940 | Number two, that He would make us lovers

00:08:06.900 | of the sovereignty of God.

00:08:08.740 | Three, that we would be totally committed

00:08:13.220 | to the truth that God is most glorified in us

00:08:15.380 | when we're most satisfied in Him.

00:08:17.180 | Fourth, that we would be sustained,

00:08:21.260 | and our pastor would be sustained

00:08:23.700 | by the reality of sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.

00:08:28.700 | And finally, number five, let's pray that we,

00:08:33.860 | and he, the pastor, would be deeply committed

00:08:36.980 | to doing the ministry with joy,

00:08:40.060 | so that we will build a healthy church

00:08:42.980 | in the midst of a cultural collapse,

00:08:46.700 | not a gloomy, sick church that doesn't contribute

00:08:49.880 | anything to the solution.

00:08:52.380 | - Thank you, Pastor John,

00:08:53.220 | and thank you for the question, Alex.

00:08:54.380 | If you would like more information about this podcast,

00:08:56.780 | or if you wanna download our apps or our past episodes,

00:08:59.580 | or even, like Alex, if you wanna get us a question,

00:09:02.220 | you can do all of that through our online home

00:09:04.180 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:09:08.740 | We'll be back tomorrow.

00:09:09.780 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:09:10.820 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John Podcast

00:09:12.780 | with longtime pastor and author, John Piper.

00:09:15.480 | (upbeat music)

00:09:18.060 | (upbeat music)

00:09:20.640 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Gospel Hope for Cultural Pessimists

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