(upbeat music) - Pastor John, there are some fairly common and popular phrases that we hear occasionally. Phrases like this, work like an Armenian, sleep like a Calvinist. Or sometimes it's said, pray like an Armenian, but sleep like a Calvinist. Or sometimes it's said, evangelize like an Armenian, but sleep like a Calvinist.

What do you make of these phrases? - Well, each one of those is a little bit different. I don't like any of them. And let me focus on the first one. I think it was first when you said, work like an Armenian, sleep like a Calvinist. The other two, I think, have the same kind of simple answer.

You know, evangelize like an Armenian and pray like an Armenian, not like a Calvinist. Sort of imply that poor Calvinists, they don't have any motive for evangelism and prayer because God rules everything. But I think in answering the first one, the others will be more clear. The reason I don't like saying, work like an Armenian and pray like a Calvinist is because I just think it's unhelpful and misleading, both historically in the effect that the reform vision had on the world, and biblically, it's just misleading because of many texts.

But what occurs to me is that there are listeners who may not even know what those terms mean. So let me sketch that out and then try to tackle it. So get this term, Arminian and Calvinist. And here's the key difference for me. Historic Arminians believe, with Calvinists, that people are so sinful and rebellious that they can't believe in Jesus without divine grace.

We both agree on that. But Arminians say that God gives this grace, prevenient grace, coming before grace, to everybody so that now they have the ability to believe. And in this way, the decisive cause of faith is us, and not God. God gets us started, puts us into a position where we can do the necessary believing, and then waits, and we provide the decisive awakening of faith.

Now, Calvinists agree that you can't believe without divine grace, but we say that the function of that grace is decisive. It doesn't just make it possible for a man to decisively produce his own faith, but God decisively defeats all obstacles and makes Christ compelling and beautiful so that the heart is decisively moved to embrace Christ freely on the basis of what the eyes of the heart see.

So one of the corollaries of the Arminian view is that a person can be a genuine believer with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and lose that standing and be lost. Now, Calvinists don't believe that. Don't believe that a person can believe, be decisively brought to faith by God, have his rebellion decisively overcome by God, and then God switch around and stop providing that decisive victory.

God's faithfulness to those whom he called out of darkness into light is the ground of our confidence in eternal security. And my guess is that one of the reasons at the street level that people are inclined to think Arminians work harder than Calvinists is that Arminians have this kind of motive that if I don't work harder, then I might lose my salvation.

I'm not saying that sophisticated, historic Arminians commend that kind of motivation, but I was talking to a man last Sunday, Tony, at the church that we're visiting here in Knoxville, and he was telling me that that's one of the reasons he converted to a more Reformed vision is because that all his life growing up, he was tormented by the fear of losing his salvation, and it was taught that he could lose it, and it had an effect on the way he went about doing his work.

And so I don't want people to work like Arminians. So, you know, when I hear the mantra, work like an Arminian and sleep like a Calvin, I say, no, I don't want people to work that way. So it's a detraction, I think, from the truth, the biblical truth of Calvinism to say that there's a superior way of being motivated by something that's less biblical.

So I think the ground of our work as Calvinists is far greater, more peaceful, more motivating than any other view provides. And here's the kind of text I have in mind. First Corinthians 15, 10, by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain, but I worked harder than any of them, yet it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Now that's a precisely Calvinistic drivenness from a grace standpoint. Grace came to Paul, it didn't come in vain, he said, it produced the hardest work imaginable, and then he pauses and says, but that hard work was not me, it was God. So it's the sovereignty of grace in my life, empowering me, that produces the kind of work that gives God glory and gives me a sense of peace that I'm being carried along by grace, even as I work very hard at it.

Or another one would be Philippians 2, 13, work out your own salvation, because God is at work in you. Or later Philippians 3, 12, I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own. So both of those texts in Philippians, in both of them, the stress falls on God's sovereign initiative producing our vigorous efforts.

And then there's Colossians 1, 29, for this I toil, he's talking about producing maturity in believers, for this I toil, struggling with all the energy that he powerfully works within me. So Paul's toil and his struggle are with the very power of God that is working in Paul. That's the heart of Calvinism.

God is the sovereign initiative taker, God is the sovereign worker and producer, God is the sovereign empower and enabler. And so when it comes to human living and human working, what we're doing is trusting, resting, and being empowered by what God does so that God gets all the glory, which is another hallmark of Calvinism.

First Peter 4, 11, let him who serves, or you could say let him who works, work in the strength that God supplies so that in everything God gets the glory. So it's precisely working like a Calvinist that gets God glory. So you can see how I get bent out of shape if I hear somebody say, don't work like a Calvinist.

What, working like a Calvinist is precisely the kind of work that is restful and trusting and being carried. My yoke is easy, my burden is light, and then God, the great sovereign initiative taking, sustaining God is getting all the glory. Let me just say one last thing. (laughs) This is long.

It's historically just plain false to imply that Calvinism, when it came into being in its more systematic refined form, produced less work than others. The Protestant work ethic was begotten by the reformed vision of reality and it built the modern world we know. So my preference would be a slogan like, work like a Calvinist, play like a Calvinist, sleep like a Calvinist, outproduce, outplay, outdream everyone by trusting in your sovereign God.

- Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org You'll find thousands of free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)