Oxygen session 3 - John Piper

(rough notes)

God’s passion for Our Joy in Christ

Our joy rises as His glory is lifted up. In the same way, His glory rises in our delight in Him.

God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him.

If this is true, the consequences are staggering for you and for your people.

To spread something, that something is the word of God. Joy is complete in that it is outward focused. There is a passion or zeal as we proclaim and draw others in.

Passion.

Let the nations be glad. A joyful people. Sing to the Lord and bless His name.

Bring gladness to the nations. Let them be passionate for the glory of God. Spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things

In all things. There isn’t a job in which people have that doesn’t have God as supreme.

For all peoples. Global. Mission isn’t over.

Exist for the nations. For the globe.

Through Jesus Christ. Nothing happens unless through the dyeing of Jesus on the Christ.

intro comments and clarifications

1. A definition of feeling, emotion, affections. Spiritual not worldly.

Spiritual affections, not bodily reactions. Awakened and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

Joy. Fear. Gratitude. Desire. Hate. Anger. Loneliness. Hope. Shame. Sorrow - these are what is meant by what the world has as affections.

Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. God makes it. God creates it.

Spiritual over and against worldly.

1. Why emphasize joy and other affections over and against right doctrine.

Right doctrine serves right affections.

Theology serves doxology.

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

What is truth for? Freedom.

Freedom from what? Slavery to sin. Sin.

What is sin? Coveting, wanting. The heart produces the desire that then becomes an action.

Truth serves heart change. Heart change is about those feelings that we have.

Right theology serves right affections.

1. Why do you emphasize affections over behavior?

I don’t and I do. There is a saying yes and no.

Make the tree good and the fruit will be good.

Behavior seems to be more ultimate.

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

The outcome is the fruit that comes from a changes heart.

God is going to do a public evidence in judgement by works. There will be a showing that by works people will know God.

This people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me.

There is a weariness of making behavior the goal.

If you have not love you are nothing - 1 cori thins 13 

Everyone must give cheerfully.

How does God feel about an unchearful giver?

1. How do the affections relate to the glory of God?

They relate in that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him.

Philippians 1:20-21 - “20 My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all boldness, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For me, living is Christ and dying is gain.”

Hope in that Christ will be magnified in my body in death.

Why is to die gain? Because he will be with Christ. That is gain.

In death you lose everything you have yet you gain that which is most valuable to you. You gain Jesus. Jesus is what satisfies you most to the extent that nothing in this world is of comparison to Christ.

the implications

More Joy in Him is what magnifies Him.

implications for the people

1. The pursuit of maximum joy and the pursuit of God are never at odds.

When you live for the glory of God you will be seeking maximum joy.

Psalm 16:11 - “11 You reveal the path of life to me;  in Your presence is abundant joy; in Your right hand are eternal pleasures.”

The world asks us to pursue maximum joy in all the wrong places.

Where does God have the highest peaks of Joy for you?

This will cost you your life. To pursue your maximum joy in God will cost you your life.

The lifestyle is costly.

The bible commands your people to be happy - Philippians 4:4, psalm 32:11, psalm 100 - it is simply not an option to be unhappy.

Depression will happen to pastors. 

We must love the cross.

The nature of faith means we should pursue our happiness all the time

John 6:35 - 

believing in Him for salvation is a coming to Jesus for our hope and longing and aching in our life.

Come to Christ. You need a savior. You need a God. You need a Lord.

Embrace Christ.

To be born again is to have our values turned on their end. 

Hebrews 11:6 - “6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near to Him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.”

The reward is Christ and everything we have in Him.

Jeremiah 2:12-13 - “12 Be horrified at this, heavens;  be shocked and utterly appalled.  This is the Lord’s declaration.  13 For My people have committed a double evil:  They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves,  cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.”

What are you digging in the ground for? Look! Look to Jesus. Come and live!

Why would you spend your money on things that are no gain?

Stop getting your pleasure in what cant be found. Get your pleasure in God.

1. What about you? What about your soul? How do you stay alive?

Hebrews 13:17-19 - “17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. 18 Pray for us; for we are convinced that we have a clear conscience, wanting to conduct ourselves honorably in everything. 19 And I especially urge you to pray that I may be restored to you very soon.”

No advantage for those under your care comes from when you groan in your ministry.

If you aren’t happy in your job, then your people’s health will reflect it.

Take Joy in your job.

When you advertise through your actions that following Jesus is tiresome, weary, depressing then you won’t be able to lead people. You will fail to minister to them.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that will be of no advantage to you.

We pastors must fight for joy as though our people’s lives depend upon it.

1. Our preaching

2 Corinthians 1:24 - “24 I do not mean that we have control of your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, because you stand by faith.”

Their joy must be able to weather the cancer and dead babies that abound in the world.

Preach meaty sermons.

There is always pain. Everybody dies. Our joy must be sufficient to deal with it.

The only way for them to be happy is to give them rock solid theology under their feet so that they may face their day of trial.

The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

We are workers with our people for our Joy

1. Are there issues and stresses in the evangelical church that would be made less bad by embracing the truth of pursuing God’s glory through our Joy.

An error that is seen.

If right thinking is drifting away from this truth, what does happen is there is a move towards dead orthodoxy.

A reaction to that in our churches is yuck and anti-intellectualism.

Both extremes are terrible and one place they come from is a neglect of this truth.

That God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

Right doing. There is a lot of stress on doing churches.

What happens when a passion for good dead gets disconnected from the truth?

This produces legalism.

The first type of legalism is moral performance.

The second type of legalism is pragmatism.

The reaction is antinomianism and the emergent church.

The heart must permeate our works. There needs to be a deep love for Jesus.

Emptiness is lighting candles and drawing with crayons on the wall.

The emergent church won’t last.

This truth could protect the evangelical church from the extreme pendulum swings that occur.

Oxygen 2011 - session 2 - John Lennox - The Church in the 21st century world

The Church in the 21st Century world

(rough notes needing to be cleared up)

The church is under attack, not only from the outside but also from the inside.

There is always a real side to ministry. Often there is a mask. It is discouraging. This is a vast problem, there is an undermining of faith in the Christian message such that people get weary and tired and are tempted to give up.

The book of acts is how Christianity exploded onto the world stage at the beginning. If we were to explore the beginnings of that book we might discover the oxygen that the early apostles breathed.

Acts 1:1-5 - I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day He was taken up, after He had given orders through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen. 3 After He had suffered, He also presented Himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. c The Holy Spirit Promised 4 While He was together with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “This,” He said, “is what you heard from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

The apostles wondered if Jesus would there and then restore the kingdom to Israel. Though Jesus tells them that it isn’t for them or us to know when He will return.

It is important to know how the book of acts is structured.

In the ancient world, as done by Luke, they marked the sections of the book with points of reflection

6:7 - the number of disciples multiplied greatly.

9:31 - the church had peace and was being built up. There was growth and multiplication.

12:24 - the word of God increased and multiplied.

16:5 - the churches were strengthened and multiplied daily

19:30 - so the word of God continued to increase and multiply

28:30 - Paul preached with boldness and without hindrance

F.F. Bruce - the spreading flame - shows and highlights the sections in the book of acts.

Who is this Jesus Christ and what right have you to be doing what you are doing? - a question throughout the book of acts.

Christianity spreads through persecution.

Luke is telling us in the first few sections what Christianity is in defining itself against its opposition.

Christianity insists it is different from the whole lot of other beliefs as set out in the book of Acts. We are shown what Christianity is against the background of other religions.

The world has come round in a circle such that the modern world is little different from the pluralistic world of ancient Rome.

Christian ethics clashed with the ethics of society. Why did the apostles continue to insist that there is only one way to God. Why couldn’t they just leave people alone.

What we’re the issues upon which the apostles took such a clear stand such that they were even happy to defend the message in the midst of threats to their life. They even died for their beliefs.

The message hasn’t changed and the world into which it is spoken hasn’t changed.

The word grew, the church grew. Did you notice that they alternate as they go through?

You will not get the church growing unless you get the word growing.

The primary focus is on the word spoken by the apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And God said, and God said, and God said. So the universe came to be. Then things changed and God said to them. He made a creature in His own image to whom he could talk. God spoke to them.

Did you realize that the miracle that brought Christianity to the world, it was a miracle of language? The very vehicle of the mighty works of God was itself a mighty work of God.

Has the word grown?

Luke writes so that the faith of Christians may have a secure base. That is in the word of God.

We need to be getting our evidence out into society. The world needs to hear that there is evidence.

To reject the scriptures as history is absurdity.

Are we explaining the Christian scriptures with the same level of intellectual growth?

We need to teach people to think biblically.

The beginning of Acts focuses our minds on one thing. The coming of the Holy Spirit to give us the ability to teach the things of Christ. To preach the gospel. Every one of them is under attack today.

Jesus presented Himself alive to his disciples by many truths. The evidence for this is the rise of the Christian church. The secular historian must provide an answer for why the Christian church rose as quickly and as wide spread as it did.

The message and event of the resurrection is one that confronts people who don’t believe as it provides and asks so many unanswered questions.

The resurrection is only petty and trivial if it didn’t happen.

Death is universally feared. The resurrection shows that death isn’t the end. Death has been conquered.

Jesus presented Himself alive. This isn’t the same as discussing the resurrection. They had experiential evidence of Jesus standing among them after his resurrection.

The very thing that should be number one in our attention ends up becoming a collection of notes that we can pull out when we need to give a talk. We must study scripture so that we can get to know God. In scripture we find the resurrected Jesus, His word, His glory.

Tell them to soak their minds and hearts in the word of God till they hear God speak.

For seven weeks Jesus, the living word, taught His disciples after His resurrection. 40 days. Just lend that time soaking yourself in the word of God. Renee what must be in the end a fact. If God doesn’t speak through His word, nothing else will. If God doesn’t authenticate Himself through his word there is a problem.

Our confidence in the world should be such that we are prepared to go and engage such that we wont allow our enemies, inside and outside the Church to shut us up.

Oxygen 2011 session 1 - John Piper - Gods passion for His Glory in Christ

Gods passion for His Glory in Christ

(rough notes, needing to be cleared up)

Orienting thoughts

Peril - approach the word of God with humility as those who teach are in peril if they go wrong Privilege -  Pleasure - there is great love in talking about these issues. There is no hesitation in preaching the topics that are being preached on. The importance is for all people, not just localities Plan - the same content, just a different progression and added stuff. Show Christ

Gods passion for His Glory in Christ

Thesis - God is infinitely passionate for His Glory

Eric Reece - writer in residence in university of Kentucky - he quotes Matthew 10:37 and was questioned on that. Who is this egomaniac quoting these words? The interviewer is unclear about how Jesus would say you should love Him more than mother and father.

If any of us got up and made the claims that Jesus did we would be called names such as egomaniac.

C.S. Lewis - the psalms are filled with divine summons to praise. They sounded to Him like God was craving for our worship like a vain women.

Worship is an aspect of religion I always found difficult to understand. Why should we worship Him? Surely a morally perfect god would have no character defects then why would so many people worship Him on a Sunday - (check quote, not exact and can’t remember the author) - Michael Prouse??

Exodus 34:13 and deut 4:24 - God determines to have all your affections.

There are people who stumble over the thesis as the above descriptions show.

If we don’t get our hatred for His centrality and His passion for His centrality, then we won’t get to the cross.

Do it all to the glory of God, though God does everything for Hie glory and that is the design of God. We are to join Him in this purpose and design. Gods sovereignty is all about His glory and His centrality.

Along comes God who says that He is totally about His own Glory. If that doesn’t sit well with you then it might be that your are failing the test. The test is are you totally God centered.

Is your God centeredness only a cloak for your own self-centeredness?

Is God calling us to be involved in His God-centeredness.

Predestination to consummation, everything God does is to make much of His glory. To uphold, make. iChat of and to vindicate his name.

Predestination - Ephesians 1:5:6 -  “5 He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, 6 to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.” - God wants to be praised forever and He does that through predestining people to Grace.

Creation - Isaiah 43:6-7 -  6 I will say to the north: Give them up! and to the south: Do not hold them back!  Bring My sons from far away, and My daughters from the ends of the earth — 7 everyone called by My name  and created for My glory.  I have formed him; indeed, I have made him.”

Oh God make my life a telescope because you look tiny to them. Make me an instrument for magnification to show them what You look like to them.

God wants people to recognize Him in you.

Incarnation - Romans 15:8-9 - “8 For I say that the Messiah became a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises to the fathers, 9 and so that Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy. As it is written:  Therefore I will praise You among the Gentiles,  and I will sing psalms to Your name.”

Mercy, the best news to all of the world.

The Gentiles will glorify God because of His mercy to Israel.

Propitiation - Romans 3:25-26 - “25 God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. 26 God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.“

The only way this makes sense is that sin is a falling short of the glory of God. We exchange His glory (worth and value) for something that is far less valuable. We have all sinned and trampled on Gods glory by accepting those things which are less glorious. Gods apparent neglect for His glory is shown to be incorrect in that God has dealt with and passed over sin in Jesus. Our sin deserves death. Gods righteousness is demonstrated and His glory vindicated in the loud proclamation of His glory in the cross.

Sanctification - Philippians 1:9-11 - “9 And I pray this: that your love r will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you can approve the things that are superior and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”

1 Peter 4:11 - “11 If anyone speaks, it should be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, it should be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To Him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.”

God purifying us to be a beautiful display of his glory

Consummation - 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10 - “9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from His glorious strength 10 in that day when He comes to be glorified by His saints and to be admired by all those who have believed, because our testimony among you was believed.”

There is nothing more valuable than displaying the glory of God in your life.

A few words about Israel 

Jeremiah 13:11 - “11 Just as underwear clings to one’s waist, so I fastened the whole house of Israel and of Judah to Me” — this is the Lord’s declaration—“so that they might be My people for My fame, praise, and glory, but they would not obey.”

Psalm 106:7:8 - “7 Our fathers in Egypt did not grasp  the significance of Your wonderful works  or remember Your many acts of faithful love;  instead, they rebelled by the sea—the Red Sea. 8 Yet He saved them because of His name,  to make His power known.” 

Isaiah 48:9-11 - “9 I will delay My anger for the honor of My name,  and I will restrain Myself for your benefit and for My praise,  so that you will not be destroyed.  10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;  I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.  11 I will act for My own sake, indeed, My own, for how can I m be defiled?  I will not give My glory to another.”

drawing things to a close

C.S. Lewis went back and wrote about the psalms after he found Jesus. We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not only expresses but completes the joy. It is the consummation.

Gods summoning us to see Him, know Him and praise Him is so that we will not be glad until we praise Him. For God self-consummation is appropriate. We are satisfied in Him. He provides for us the one thing that will make us happy for ever.

John 17:24 - “24 Father,  I desire those You have given Me  to be with Me where I am. Then they will see My glory,  which You have given Me  because You loved Me before the world’s foundation.”

It is love! Nothing short of Him can satisfy my soul. It is not self-exultation but rather love.

The world view project

A lot of my time in the past couple of weeks has been spent going through a book by James Sire entitled “The universe next door”. It raises a lot of questions, and particularly in the context of Swinburne University, within a lecture and even a tutorial or lab, there are bound to be many different world views that people hold to.

“The world view project” is an analysis of the different world views and how they relate to the context of Swinburne University and particularly the Hawthorn campus. The aim is to take what is a philosophical notion and lay it bare for people to see. Though I love exotic language and philosophical jargon, I shall refrain from such.

At Christian Union, we will be studying this book as part of MULCH. The material that appears in these posts will only be supplementary to the material covered in the book. You still need to read the book if you are taking part in MULCH.

The structure of each post will be an analysis of 8 questions that frame each world view. These questions are:

1. What is prime reality?
2. What is the nature of external reality, that is the world around us?
3. What is a human being?
4. What happens to a person at death?
5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
6. How do we know what is right and wrong?
7. What is the meaning of human history?
8. What personal, life-orienting core commitments are consisten with this worldview?

Having shown these eight points about each world view, I’ll then construct a persona which will give some body to the world view. By using a persona, I endeavour to provide a relatable aspect to the world view. Any resemblance to people I know will be completely accidental and unintentional.

The final piece of each post will be a way of cultural engagement and analysis from a Reformed Christian perspective. We will be echoing the Apostle Paul who confronted the world view of the greeks when he spoke at the Areopagus.

Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. 23 For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed:

TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it —He is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man He has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 ⌊He did this⌋ so they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Being God’s offspring then, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination. 30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because He has set a day when He is going to judge the world in righteousness by the Man He has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” 32 When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him. But others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.”

The Holy Bible : Holman Christian standard version. 2009 (Ac 17:22–32). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.

The first post I’ll make will be one on Christianity. This will appear some time during the week and then weekly posts there after.

God bless,

Matt.