(upbeat music) - Hello again, thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John with longtime author and pastor John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Before we launch into today's episode, I have a pretty important programming note for you. As all of you know, or most of you know, Pastor John travels and he speaks a lot, even internationally, and he also blocks off weeks in his annual calendar for the purpose of writing new books.

I'm really glad he does both of these things. I'm sure you're really glad he does both of those things. But it also means a good chunk of his time each year is bound up with those things. And so seasonally, sometimes these priorities take away his time from other things like this podcast.

And in fact, after we record today's episode, Pastor John heads off to speak around Europe, and then he returns to the States to finish writing a very important book on God's providence, a book we've talked about before on the podcast, but one that looks back at all of the precious texts in the Bible that describe and celebrate the absolute sovereignty of God.

He's writing a whole book on the sovereignty of God. It's a big book. He started it last year. He'll finish it this year. I can't wait for this book. I suspect it's gonna be one of those really big landmark works that will define his legacy. But that means also he will not be back in the studio with me, again, until early September, it looks like.

So two things. Number one, pray for Pastor John Sommer. He has a lot of really great work ahead of him. And then second, that means that no new episodes will be published for about six weeks or so. Until then, you can subscribe to the audio podcast, and what we're gonna do is replay some of your favorite episodes and some of our favorite episodes three times a week on the same publishing schedule.

You'll get those not through YouTube or DesiringGod.org. You'll get those through the audio feed, so make sure you have an audio podcast and you're listening if you wanna hear those episodes. Again, three times per week we'll be doing that. All right, but you're here today in the studio, Pastor John, and here's the question today.

It comes from a listener named Jordan. Good afternoon, Pastor John. I was listening to episode 1322. What you said about the older brother jumped out at me. The problem with the older brother is that he lived like a slave and not a son. He related to his father as if his work would earn good things instead of enjoying the fellowship of the father's bounty.

That's a great principle pulled from Luke chapter 15, verses 17 to 24. I often struggle with knowing in my heart that no good work can ever be enough to please God, but thinking in my mind that God is surely not pleased enough with me. I fear I live like this older brother.

How do you live as a son and not a slave, and how would I know if I'm living as a slave? Okay, the first step in not living like a slave but like a son of God is to stop saying mistaken slave-like things about our father. Jesus said in John 15, 15, "No longer do I call you slaves, "for the slave does not know what his master's doing, "but I have called you friends." And you could say sons as well.

Both pictures are in the New Testament, and both are getting at the same reality, but here the point is, "I've called you friends "for all that I heard from my father "I have made known to you." So one of the marks of a slave is we act like, we live way out on the edge of the plantation in slave quarters where nobody knows what the master's plans are.

When you don't know what the master's plans are and how he does his business, you can easily say false things about him. So one of the first marks of a son or friend is that we know him. We're brought in to his counsels. We see how he works. We see how he makes his decisions.

We see what he's up to. We begin to understand his way and how he goes about running the world, and we stop saying things about him that are not true. So Jordan, I love you, take this right. Here's one step you can take away from slave-like relation to God.

Never say again what you said. I often struggle with knowing, knowing in my heart that no good work can ever be enough to please God. Don't say that anymore. Now I might be misunderstanding you, okay? I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here. But it sounds like you really believe this, like no good work can ever be enough to please God.

That is slave talk. That's not son talk. So step one, don't believe that. Don't say that anymore. And I'm lingering on this because you're not the problem here. Thousands of people have been taught to say that by quoting Isaiah 64 6. We even sing it. In the King James, it says, we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

Yes, how many Christians have been taught to say that about every one of their good deeds as a Christian? That's not, I'm gonna emphasize, read it in context. That is not describing the good deeds of the genuine believer and his good deeds done in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Those were the hypocritical religious acts that made God hold his nose. When Jesus said, let your light shine that men may see your good deeds, he did not mean that they may see your filthy rags. He didn't. When Paul says that Christians bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, Holy, Holy, Holy Spirit, he did not mean that the Spirit produces filthy rags.

When Paul says Christ gave himself for us to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for good works, he didn't mean Christ died to create filthy rags. What has happened in our grassroots theology, why this is, is that our zeal to clarify the pervasiveness of sin and the perfection of justification, we have undercut the Spirit's work in sanctification, which is very real and very precious and should not be called filthy rags.

One of the ways we know we are the children of God is that God has sent his Spirit to lead us, lead us, lead us, lead us into warfare with sin, lead us into paths of righteousness. Here's Romans 8, 14. All who are led by the Spirit are sons of God.

For you did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And that witness, bearing witness that we are the children of God, that witness that he bears, he's number one, by his power in us to work things that are no longer filthy rags.

That's witness number one. I am working in you to produce my fruit, not your filth. Number two, to give us a sweet assurance that we have an all-caring Father. Abba, Abba, Father. When that cry rises from the heart in childlike need, it is the Spirit in us. So here's the key to a non-slave sonship relation with God.

Get to know God in his word. You are no longer slaves who do not know what the Father's up to. You are in the big house. Your slavery is over. You may walk into the Father's study at any time and interrupt him. His book is 1,200 pages long and full of gold and silver and honey for his children.

That's where you know him and meet him in his word. Realize that because he gave his son, your sins are forgiven. And his Spirit enables you to please him. Camilla, stop there 'cause you said, you said you don't think you could ever do anything that pleases God. I could have misread what you said, but that's what it sounded like, and I want you to stop talking that way and thinking that way.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:9, "Whether we are at home or away, "we make it our aim to please him." He did not mean, and so our whole life is futile, aimless, pointless. Christian life is a failure since nobody can do it. He didn't mean that. He meant what he said in 2 Thessalonians 1:11, "God fulfills every work of faith by his power "so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in us "according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ." Don't call that magnificent grace-based spirit-wrought work filthy rags and displeasing to the Lord.

Christ did not die just for our justification, only for our justification. He died for our sanctification. He did not die just to remove the guilt of sin, but the power of sin as well now. Sons of God revel in forgiveness and trust the spirit of the Father to do good.

And if there are imperfections in our spirit-empowered good deeds, which there are, that does not make them filthy rags. They are the fruit of the Spirit, and our Father is pleased with them. The day of perfection will come, oh, it will come. But till then, God knows what he's working in his children.

Mark that. God knows what he is working in his children, and he is pleased with what he is working. Hebrews 13.21, I end with this. He is working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen, that's the way a son talks, not a slave.

- Amen, that's pure gold, Pastor John, thank you. That's really a great place to end for the summer. Many blessings to you, Pastor John, on your travels to Europe and on your final weeks writing your book on God's providence. And we are now going to break for six or seven weeks.

Please continue to pray for Pastor John this summer, and please continue to send us your questions. We'll get all of those, so please keep sending those in the summer, and we'll work through those questions in the fall. And feel free, of course, to go back and listen to our 1,400 episodes that we've recorded and released to date in the archive.

You can do all of that. Send us a question, listen to old episodes at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. And do remember to subscribe to the audio feed through our podcast app, and you'll be able to relive some of the best episodes we've released. I'm looking forward to it.

I am Tony Reineke, grateful to God for you, for the listeners, for donors who fund this podcast and who make our work possible. We'll see you back here in six or seven weeks with new episodes. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)