John Piper’s Sermons From Ephesians

Chapter One

Predestined for Adoption to the Praise of His Glory
- – Reflections on Being Adopted by God and Adopting Children
Ephesians 1:1-6

God Predestined Us unto Sonship Through Jesus Christ
Ephesians 1:3-6

God Has Chosen Us in Him Before the Foundation of the Earth
Ephesians 1:4

Sealed by the Spirit to the Day of Redemption
Ephesians 1:11-14

His Body: The Fullness of Him Who Fills All in All
Ephesians 1:15-23

Chapter Two

But God…
Ephesians 2:1-9

Why Do We Need to Be Born Again?
Ephesians 2:1-10

Why We Need a Savior: Captive to an Alien Power, by Nature Children of Wrath
Ephesians 2:1-3

Why We Need a Savior: Dead in Sins
Ephesians 2:1

Israel and Us Reconciled in One Body
Ephesians 2:11-22

Race and Cross
- – Racial Harmony Sunday
Ephesians 2:11-22

Remember That You Were Hopeless
Ephesians 2:11-12

Chapter Three

The Unfathomable Riches of Christ, for All Peoples, Above All Powers, through the Church
- – Missions Week
Ephesians 3:1-13

The Cosmic Church
Ephesians 3:10

Far More Than You Think
Ephesians 3:14-21

How Can We Be Clothed with Power?
- – Missions Week
Ephesians 3:14-21

Chapter Four

Maintain the Unity of the Spirit
Ephesians 4:1-6

One Lord, One Spirit, One Body for All Time and All Peoples
Ephesians 4:1-6

How Christ Enables the Church to Upbuild Itself in Love
Ephesians 4:4-16

How the Saints Minister to the Body
Ephesians 4:7-16

Why the Saints Minister to the Body
Ephesians 4:7-16

Alone in a Big Church
- – A Call to Small Togetherness
Ephesians 4:11-12

Escape from Futility
Ephesians 4:17-21

Put on the New Person
Ephesians 4:22-24

Satan Seeks a Gap Called Grudge
Ephesians 4:22-27

Speak Truth with Your Neighbor
Ephesians 4:25

Don’t Steal, Work and Give!
Ephesians 4:28

Make Your Mouth a Means of Grace
Ephesians 4:29-30

Be Kind to One Another
Ephesians 4:31-5:2

Forgive Just as God in Christ Also Has Forgiven You
- – Palm Sunday
Ephesians 4:32-5:2

The Depth of Christ’s Love: Its Cost
Ephesians 4:32-5:2

Chapter Five

The Darkness of Abortion and the Light of Truth
- – Sanctity of Life Sunday
Ephesians 5:1-16

The Enthronement of Desire
Ephesians 5:3-6

Exposing the Dark Work of Abortion
- – Sanctity of Life Sunday
Ephesians 5:11

Urgency and Gratitude
Ephesians 5:15-20

When Is Abortion Racism?
Ephesians 5:16-17

Singing And Making Melody To The Lord
Ephesians 5:17-20

Be Filled with the Spirit
Ephesians 5:18

Adam, Where Are You?
- – Father’s Day
Ephesians 5:21-28

Husbands Who Love Like Christ and the Wives Who Submit to Them
Ephesians 5:21-23; 1 Peter 3:1-7

Jesus Is Precious as the Foundation of the Family
Ephesians 5:21-6:9

Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head, Part 1
Ephesians 5:21-33

Lionhearted and Lamblike: The Christian Husband as Head, Part 2
- – What Does It Mean to Lead
Ephesians 5:21-33

Marriage: A Matrix of Christian Hedonism
Ephesians 5:21-33

Marriage: Pursuing Conformity to Christ in the Covenant
Ephesians 5:21-33

Beautifying the Body of Christ
Ephesians 5:22-32

Chapter 6

Fathers, Bring Them Up in the Discipline & Instruction of the Lord
- – A Tribute to My Father, William Solomon Hottle Piper
Ephesians 6:1-4

Marriage Is Meant for Making Children…Disciples of Jesus, Part 1
Ephesians 6:1-4

Marriage Is Meant for Making Children…Disciples of Jesus, Part 2
- – A Father’s Conquest of Anger in Himself and in His Children
Ephesians 6:1-4

Raising Children Who Hope in the Triumph of God
Ephesians 6:4

Ready to Move with the Gospel of Peace
Ephesians 6:10-20

Spiritual Warfare and Prayer
Ephesians 6:10-20

The Weapon Serves the Wielding Power
Ephesians 6:17-20

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The Weapon Serves the Wielding Power

by John Piper – Listen |   Download

Ephesians 6:17-20

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

Prayer is a Wartime Walkie-Talkie

As I have done my yearly survey of the Biblical teaching on prayer in preparation for prayer week, I have been impressed more than ever before that God has given us prayer not as an intercom for increased convenience in our secluded cottages, but as a walkie-talkie connecting the general’s headquarters with the transportation line and the field hospital and the front line artillery. Prayer is not a bell to call the servants to satisfy some desire we happen to feel, it is a battlefield transmitter for staying in touch with the general.

I think that is obvious in the text. Paul says (in verse 12) that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces. Then he calls us to take up arms (in verses 13-17). Then he says, “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance….” That is clearly combat talk. Keep alert! Persevere!

But then I started seeing evidence for this everywhere I looked. For example, in John 15:16 Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”

Notice: Why is the Father going to give the disciples what they ask in Jesus’ name? Answer: Because they have been sent to bear fruit. The reason the Father gives the disciples the gift of prayer is because Jesus has given them a mission. In fact the grammar of John 15:16 implies that the reason Jesus gives them their mission is so that they will be able to enjoy the power of prayer. “I send you to bear fruit…so that whatever you ask the Father…he may give it.”

Is it not plain then that the purpose of prayer is to accomplish a mission? It is as though the field commander (Jesus) called in the troops, gave them a crucial mission (go bear fruit), handed each one of them a personal transmitter coded to the frequency of the general’s headquarters, and said, “Comrades, the general has a mission for you. He aims to see it accomplished. And to that end he has authorized me to give each of you personal access to him through these transmitters. If you stay true to his mission and seek his victory first, he will always be as close as your transmitter, to give tactical advice and to send in air cover when you need it.”

What has become clearer to me in recent days is that many of our problems with prayer and much of our weakness in prayer comes from the fact that we are not all on active duty, and yet we still try to use the transmitter. We have taken a wartime walkie-talkie and tried to turn it into a civilian intercom.

Take another example from Scripture. In Luke 21:34-36 Jesus warns his disciples that times of great distress and opposition were coming. Then he said, “But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man.” In other words, following Jesus will inevitably lead us into severe conflict with evil. It will surround us and attack us and threaten to destroy our faith. But God has given us a transmitter. If we go to sleep it will do us no good. But if we are alert and call for help in the conflict, the reinforcements will come and the general will not let his faithful soldiers be denied their crown of victory before the Son of man.

What About Praying for Peace?

1 Timothy 2:1-4 looks like it might be an exception to this battlefield image of prayer. Paul says that he wants us to pray for kings and for all who are in high positions “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.” Now that sounds very domestic and civilian and peaceful.

But read on. The reason for praying this way is highly strategic. Verses 3-4 say, “This [praying for peace] is good, and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” God aims to save people from every tribe and people and tongue and nation. But one of the great obstacles to victory is when people are swept up into political and militaristic conflicts that draw away their attention and their creativity and their strength from the real battle of the universe.

Satan’s aim is that nobody be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. And one of his key strategies is to start battles in the world which draw our attention away from the real battle for the salvation of the lost and the perseverance of the saints. He knows that the real battle, as Paul says, “is not against flesh and blood.” So the more wars and conflicts and revolutions of flesh and blood he can start the better, as far as he is concerned.

So when Paul tells us to pray for peace because God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, he is not picturing prayer as a kind of harmless domestic intercom for increasing our civilian conveniences. He is picturing it as an urgent message to headquarters asking that the enemy not be allowed to draw away any fire power onto decoy conflicts of flesh and blood.

So I am more convinced than ever as we begin 1985 that God has given us prayer because Jesus has given us a mission. We are on this earth to press back the forces of darkness, and we are given access to headquarters by prayer to advance this cause–that’s all. When we try to turn it into a civilian intercom to increase our conveniences, it stops working, and our faith begins to falter.

Prayer is for the Kingdom

In a recent issue of World Christian magazine David Bryant tells about a young Hindu social worker who came to America and stayed at his house. He and his wife took her one evening to dinner at a friend’s home. On they way the Hindu woman “witnessed” to David Bryant and his wife Robyne. She showed them a picture of a guru who had died 45 years ago. She and her family now worship him and pray to him.

When Bryant blurted out, “But he’s dead!” she disagreed and said that in response to her prayers he has given her a very good life and surrounded her with many blessings.

When they got to the home where they would eat dinner David Bryant hoped that his Christian friend would help bear a credible witness to this Hindu woman. But he was dismayed when at the dinner table his host said, “Great house, isn’t it? I know I put a lot more into it than I can ever hope to get out of it. But I don’t mind. We plan to be here the next 45 years anyway, God willing. We’re so thankful. The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. I don’t know what we’d do without him.”

Bryant sat in his back yard the next morning asking himself: Is that the point of prayer–to treat God like Coke? Some say things go better with Coke. Some say things go better with Christ. Some say things go better with a guru. A bird splashed into a nearby birdbath and sent Bryant’s mind to Matthew 6. Yes we are supposed to be as free and peaceful as the birds. But why? To seek first the Kingdom!

The power of prayer was not given to the church to win comforts but to wield a weapon.

The theme of our Prayer Advance 1985 is “The Weapon and the Wielding Power.” The weapon we have in mind is the one in Ephesians 6:17–the sword of the Spirit, namely, the word of God. And the power we have in mind–the power that wields the weapon–is prayer. In the original Greek Ephesians 6:18 does not begin a new sentence. It connects with verse 17 like this: “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying through all prayer and supplication on every occasion…” Take the sword…praying. Prayer is the power that wields the weapon of the word. And by the word of God we do battle against sin and unbelief in our own lives and in the world.

That is the truth that has gripped me most firmly over the past weeks of reflection about prayer. We will talk about how prayer empowers the word next week under the title “The Power That Wields the Weapon.”

But here at the beginning of prayer week we need to focus on a more basic truth about the relationship between prayer and the weapon of the word. Not only does prayer wield the weapon of the word, but the weapon serves the wielding power. That is the title of today’s message. Today I want us to focus our attention on the several ways that the word helps us pray.

The word of God is a living and active weapon. When the hand of prayer reaches out to pick it up, it is not dead weight in the hand. It sends its own impulses up the arm of prayer. That’s what we want to think about in the time we have left this morning. How does the weapon serve the wielding power? How does the word serve prayer?

I’ll mention five ways.

Five Ways That the Word of God Serves Our Prayers

1. The word reveals a God who delights in the prayers of his people.

The most basic encouragement for our praying this week is the truth that our God delights in our prayer. Proverbs 15:8 says, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.” In the book of Revelation John describes golden bowls full of incense filling the throne room of God with pleasing aroma. And the bowls of incense are the prayers of the saints.

Wouldn’t it encourage you to spend time in prayer this week if you really believed that every time you bowed your head in prayer the Master of the universe enjoyed it? It’s as though he has a favorite food. And when you pray he can smell the aroma from the kitchen as you prepare his favorite dish.

The best thing of all is that the food God loves most is to answer prayer. When God gets hungry for some special satisfaction, he seeks out a prayer to answer. Our prayer is the sweet aroma from the kitchen ascending up into the King’s chambers making him hungry for the meal. But the actual enjoyment of the meal is his own work to answer our prayer. The food of God is to answer our prayers.

The most wonderful thing about the Bible is that it reveals a God who can only satisfy his appetite for joy by answering prayers. He has not deficiency in himself that he needs to fill up, so he gets all his satisfaction by filling up the deficiencies of people who pray.

“Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?” says the Lord. No. Therefore “offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving…and call upon him in the day of trouble, and he will deliver you.” (Psalm 50:13-15). An answered prayer is the meal of God. So if you want to feed him with the only kind of joy he is capable of, hold up the cup of prayer and let him fill it.

So the first way that the word of God serves the weapon of prayer is by revealing a God who delights in the prayers of his people. (See also Romans 8:26 where God loves our prayers so much that he commissions his Spirit to pray through us when we are hindered in our praying.)

2. The word serves prayer by commanding it.

The most basic command of the Bible is that we be people of prayer–that we be people who look away from ourselves and our own resources to God. God wants to be God for us. He wants to be our treasure and reward and defense and hope and peace and joy. And when he commands prayer he simply is saying, “be the kind of people who want me to be all of that for you, instead of looking to the world for your treasure and reward and hope and defense and joy.”

“Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

“Continue steadfastly in prayer.” (Colossians 4:2)

“In everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)

“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

The commandments to pray abound throughout Scripture. God has strewn the pages of the Bible with invitations to share in his favorite meal–answered prayer. Let the commandments to pray move you this week to devote new time to mixing your golden bowl of prayer with God’s favorite dish.

3. The word serves the wielding power of prayer by offering promises to make us hopeful in our praying.

Just take a sampling for your encouragement during prayer week.

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

“The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. 19 He fulfils the desire of all who fear him, he also hears their cry, and saves them.” (Psalm 145:18-19)

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.” (John 15:7)

“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened…” (Matthew 7:7-8)

In other words, since God is the kind of God who delights in prayer and who feeds himself by answering prayer, he gives it not only the force of commandment but also the incentive of promise. Amazing promises–to stir us up to pray this week with all our heart.

But that’s not all. He also gives us a history book of answered prayer.

4. The weapon of the word serves the wielding power of prayer by encouraging it with stories of tremendous successes in prayer.

It tells of Jesus praying all night before he made the decision about who would serve as the twelve apostles of his church (Luke 6:12). Then he chose them and they changed the course of world history beyond imagination.

It tells of Solomon praying for understanding so that he could rule well (1 Kings 3:9). Then God answers and gives him so much insight that people came from around the world to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

It tells of Elijah praying that no rain fall for three years. And no rain fell. And then the prayer for fire on Mt. Carmel to defeat the priests of Baal. And finally the prayer for rain as he bowed before the Lord alone on the mountain. And there was a great rain. (1 Kings 17:1; 18:1, 42-45)

The word is a history of God working in answer to prayer. And the stories are written to make us hopeful in our praying (Romans 15:4).

5. Finally, the word helps us in our praying by giving us the content of our prayers.

1 John 5:14 says, “And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.” We must pray according to his will. And what better way to pray according to his will than to pray his very words?

The weapon of the word of God serves the wielding power of prayer by giving words to prayer. And now you can see, as we draw things to a close, that the power that wields the sword of the Spirit is not really our power. Prayer, when it is full of power is full of the word of God. The sword of the Spirit is wielded by the power of the Spirit. The sword is full of the electricity of God. When we touch it with prayer the current of divine power runs up our arm. And the wielding power becomes the very power of God.

Make this first full week of 1985 a week of prayer.

Let the word reveal a God who loves the aroma of prayer and satisfies his longings by answering prayer.

Open yourself to the commandments of the word to pray without ceasing.

Be encouraged to pray by the amazing promises made to those who call on God with all their heart.

Imagine yourself in one of the great Bible stories of answered prayer.

And then fill your prayer with the very words of Scripture.

I believe with all my heart that if we devote ourselves to the word and prayer like this through the week, it will be a week that changes the world.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Spiritual Warfare and Prayer

by John Piper – Listen |   Download

Ready to Move with the Gospel of Peace

by John Piper – Listen |   Download

Ephesians 6:10-20

Beginning a Series on Evangelism

This morning we begin a four week series on evangelism. My decision to focus our attention on evangelism comes from a growing and deepening desire to see God convert more unbelievers through our ministry.

Virtually Everyone Is Burdened in This Area

Virtually every earnest Christian is grieved by his weakness in this area. Did you know that? There is not a zealous Christian in this room who feels content with his effectiveness in personal evangelism. We feel guilt for our timidity and regret for missed opportunities, phony because of our lack of compassion for the lost and fear that some program of evangelism is going to be pushed on us against our wills.

One of the most freeing things is to simply get this out on the table and admit it. And then to notice that it is the universal experience even of the most devoted servants of Christ.

For example, James Ussher was an evangelical teacher and preacher in the early 1600s. Horatius Bonar says that he was busy continually redeeming the time for Christ. He was a painstaking, laborious preacher of the Word for 55 years. The very day that he took ill with his last sickness he got up from his writing and went out to visit a sick woman and spoke to her with great earnestness about heaven. But when Ussher came to his deathbed, the last words he was heard to utter at one o’clock in the afternoon, March 21, 1656, were these, “But, Lord, in special forgive me my sins of omission.”

Here is a man that to everyone else was eminently useful in the ministry and blessed by God, and in his dying moment he was oppressed with a sense of his omissions! When I read stories like that, and when I look into my own heart, and when I talk to people like you, I conclude that virtually every earnest Christian is burdened by a sense of weakness or neglect or failure in this area of evangelism. We want to be used by God to win others from unbelief to belief, but have little success, and the result is often an oppressive feeling that seeks to avoid the issue and recoils in self-defense from sermons on evangelism.

Not a Rod but a Dream

Well if it helps any, I feel that way too. These messages are not easy for me to preach. I don’t come with a rod. I come with a longing and with a dream. The longing is that I would be changed by these messages and become more fruitful in God’s hands, and that whatever in my life may hinder the saving work of God would be removed. I want there to be a new touch of power not only on my preaching but also on my personal contact with unbelievers. I want fresh guidance from the Lord concerning the scope and focus of my pastoral labor to know if I am spending my time in a way that would maximize my life for Christ’s glory. That’s my longing.

My dream is that we as a church would be freed from the paralyzing effects of guilt in regard to personal evangelism. That all of us would find some natural outlet for love toward the lost people in this city. That there would develop an array of bridges into Bethlehem from many pockets of unbelief. That our personal sense of the reality of Christ would be so deep and confident and satisfying that we could scarcely keep from commending him to others. And that the power of Christ would rest upon us with unusual effectiveness.

So I don’t come with a rod this morning; I come with a deep longing for myself and with a happy dream of what it might be like if God would make us a healthy, happy, free, authentic, loving, powerful, evangelistic, outreaching, soul-saving church. If you share this longing for me and perhaps for yourself, and if you have a similar dream for Bethlehem, would you devote regular, earnest time to prayer over the next four weeks that God would make this longing and this dream a reality? I believe he will do it if we seek it with all our hearts.

To begin our series I want us to focus on Ephesians 6:15. “Having shod your feet with the READINESS OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE.”

“The Gospel of Peace”

Before we focus on the word “readiness” and its place in the armor of God, I want to say just a word about the gospel of peace. The gospel that we have for the world—for our lost dad or sister or neighbor or classmate of colleague or unreached people group—the gospel that we have is the good news that God purchased peace by the death of his Son and offers it to sinners who believe in Jesus.

We have the good news that God’s omnipotent wrath against sinners has been taken away through the death of Jesus for sin. And everyone who believes is reconciled to him freely by grace. And in the place of enmity comes peace. And there is nothing sweeter in all the world than to be at peace with God.

Strange to Find “Peace” in Ephesians 6?

Sometimes commentators point out how strange it is that Paul should mention a gospel of peace right in the middle of a passage dealing with spiritual warfare and conflict and armor. But it isn’t strange is it? The aim of our warfare is that people would accept the terms of peace that God holds out, namely, faith in Jesus. And the only reason there is any conflict at all is because the power of sin and the powers of Satan are dead set against making peace with God.

Look at Ephesians 2:13 to see Paul develop the gospel of peace for us.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. 14) For he is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility . . . 16) and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. 17) And he came and preached peace to you who were far off [Gentiles!] and peace to those who were near [Jews!]; 18) for through him we have access in one Spirit to the Father.

The good news of peace is that when Christ died and shed his blood for sin, two kinds of enmity were overcome. The enmity between God and repentant sinners was brought to an end. And the enmity between races and factions in Christ was brought to an end. So Christ became our peace. That is the gospel of peace.

Putting on the Whole Armor of God

We have heard it by the grace of God. We have believed it by the grace of God. And we have been saved through it by the grace of God. And now Paul says in Ephesians 6:15 that the readiness of this gospel of peace is to be put on like shoes as part of our spiritual armor. ” . . . and having shod your feet with the readiness of the gospel of peace.”

So let’s think for a few minutes about this readiness as part of the whole armor of God. Verses 11–12 say, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The Context of Having Our Feet Shod

Four things that we learn from those two verses:

1. All Life Is War

From the cradle to the grave, life is war. Your soul, your mind, your body, your family, your career are fields of conflict. Until Satan is finally thrown into the lake of fire, our peace with God will have to be a vigilant peace. Because Satan will certainly give us no peace if we are at peace with God.

2. The War Is Against Supernatural Evil Powers

The war we are in is not a war with flesh and blood but with supernatural evil powers. What amazes me about Paul’s words here is not what he affirms but what he denies. I’m not surprised to hear him say that we wrestle with evil angelic, demonic, supernatural powers. What surprises me is that he says (in v. 12) we do NOT wrestle with flesh and blood.

I want to say to Paul, “You’ve been stoned and beaten and imprisoned and run out of town and shipwrecked. Your flesh has been torn and your blood has been spilt and that has hindered your ministry again and again. The flesh of others has torn your flesh and the blood of others has boiled against your blood. What do you mean you don’t wrestle against flesh and blood? It’s people with their hands and their stones and rods and chains that have cost you dearly and tested your faith almost to the limit.”

I think Paul would answer. “You’re right. Flesh and blood is real and it can be very evil. But what I mean is this. Whenever someone’s flesh attacks me, or someone’s blood boils against me, or my way is hindered by man, something else is also going on, something deeper, bigger, more terrible, more sinister, more destructive than meets the eye. I don’t mean that flesh and blood can’t hurt or hinder the cause of Christ. I mean that the prince of the power of the air is more dangerous than any of his subjects and that he must be overcome in every instance of conflict, or the battle is lost.”

Consider Ephesians 2:1–2. “And you he made alive when you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

Sure, the sons of disobedience (in their flesh and blood reality) can oppose us in our spiritual warfare; but it’s more decisive to defeat the spirit that works in them and the prince of the power of the air that they follow, than simply to wrestle as though all you are dealing with is human nature.

So the first thing we see in verses 11–12 is that life is war, and the second thing we see is that the conflict, if it is going to be successful, will be fought with supernatural, demonic forces. If they are not engaged, the victory is superficial.

3. There Is Danger of Falling in This Battle

The third thing we see is that there is danger of falling in this battle. Three times Paul tells us to take pains to stand, that is, not to fall. We’ve just spent several weeks on this issue of perseverance in the book of Hebrews so we need not dwell on it here.

4. God Has Made Provision for Us to Stand

The fourth thing we see in these verses is that God has made provision for us so that we can stand and not fall. And that provision is armor. God is able to keep us from falling, Jude says, and the way he keeps us from falling is by fitting us for successful spiritual combat. So if your aim is to persevere in the Christian life and not be defeated by the wiles of the devil, then you must put on the armor described in these verses. This is how God means to keep us safe unto the day of salvation.

Having Our Feet Shod with “Readiness”

That’s the context in which we read about having our feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace (verse 15). Notice that we are not shod with the gospel. The gospel is the word of God and the word of God is our sword according to verse 17. We are not shod with the gospel. What we are shod with is the READINESS of the gospel. Now what does that mean?

Ready to Move with the Gospel

I think it means, “Let your feet be ready to move with the gospel.” Feet are for moving from one place to another. If you put on shoes of readiness, then the idea would seem to be readiness to do what feet are for, namely, moving. And if the readiness is readiness of the gospel it probably means ready to move with the gospel—move with gospel power and for gospel purposes.

Let me show you two or three reasons why I think this is the right interpretation.

The Background of Isaiah 52:7

It’s almost certain that Paul has in mind here the words of Isaiah 52:7,

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

Here we have a picture of the feet of people who are running to bring good news, and the good news is good news of peace. Surely this is where Paul got his imagery. And if so, then the “readiness of the gospel of peace” is surely a readiness to move with the gospel, a readiness to tell the good news, and publish peace and say “God reigns!”

The Structure of Colossians 3–4

Here’s another reason I think this is what Paul has in mind, and this is really interesting. Notice in Ephesians 6 that the passage on spiritual warfare comes right after the passage on husbands and wives, children and parents, and masters and slaves. Well, if you turn to Colossians 3, near the end you see that the same three pairs are dealt with—wives and husbands (3:18–19), children and parents (3:20–21), and masters and slaves (3:22–4:1). But then instead of a paragraph on spiritual armor Paul calls for vigilant prayer (4:2–4), and look what he says in verses 5–6,

Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.

Here in a context much like the one in Ephesians is an exhortation to be alert to how you can be the salt of the earth, to answer unbelievers’ questions, and to make the most of the time for the sake of Christ. This is what I think Paul means by the readiness of the gospel of peace. Being prepared and being alert and ready to talk about the gospel.

A Parallel in 1 Peter 3:15

One last confirmation: In 1 Peter 3:15 the very word “ready” is used in the same kind of exhortation. “Always be ready to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

Experiencing the Power of the Gospel

So, coming back to Ephesians 6:15 I have one last observation. The armor of God is given to us believers to help us stand against the devil. It is introduced as defensive armor. Verse 13: “Take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” How to stay standing is the issue.

So what can we conclude from the fact that the shoes of verse 15 are the readiness to move with the gospel of peace? I conclude this. A ready offense is an essential part of a successful defense. And O how true this is!

Giving the gospel away is one of the best ways of experiencing its power in your own life. The best way to taste the power of God for your own soul is to venture something on it. It’s the great old truth of the Lord himself when he said, “He who loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” The more ready we are to move with the gospel, the more life and power and joy and security we will know in the gospel.

In giving we will receive. In dying we will live. And in telling the gospel we will hear it again with O so much more depth and power and joy.

How lovely on the mountains
are the feet of him
who brings good news, good news,
proclaiming peace,
announcing news of happiness:
Our God reigns! Our God reigns!

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Raising Children Who Hope in the Triumph of God

by John Piper – Listen |   Download

Ephesians 6:4

Let’s think for a moment about the word “Lord” at the end of Ephesians 6:4. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Confessing That Jesus Is Lord

Lord is an extremely exalted title as Paul uses it. In Philippians 2:9–11 he says that “God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

To say that Jesus is “Lord” means

• that he is the rightful King of the universe,
• that he is ruler over all the world,
• that he is the commander of all the armies of heaven and of all his Christian soldiers on the earth,
• that he is now reigning until he has put all his enemies under his feet,
• that he is triumphant over sin and death and pain and Satan and hell, and
• that he will one day establish his kingdom of righteousness and joy on the earth and reign forever and ever to the glory of his Father.

To confess that Jesus is Lord means that you believe that he will triumph over all things. He is not a small-town god. He is more powerful than Reagan and Gorbachev and Hatcher and Khomeni and Kadafy and all the other leaders of the world put together. He will come in triumph. And when he comes, he will be just as visible and real in Minneapolis as Michael Jackson at the Met Center, only his audience will be bigger, and his band will be louder, and his laser will be like lightning from one horizon to the other, and when his concert is over, all the evil and unbelief in the world will be gone, and those who followed him will live and play and work as happy as a child could ever be forever and ever.

Therefore I conclude that whatever else it means to bring our children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord—the King and Commander and Ruler of all things—it means this:

• Bring the children up to hope in the triumph of God.
• Bring them up to find their place in the triumphant cause of the Lord Christ.
• Bring them up to see everything in relation to the triumph of God.
• Bring them up to know that the path of sin is a dead end street no matter how many cool and famous people are on it, because the cause of righteousness will triumph in the end. Christ has already struck the decisive blow on Good Friday and Easter morning.

The Family in God’s Great Design for the World

I confess that I have gotten very excited about being a father as I have been thinking this week about what a family is and what it’s for in God’s great design for the world. I get excited

• when I think of the family as a breeding ground for children who hope in the triumph of God,
• or when I think of it as a training school for teaching what is true and false about what the world is really coming to,
• or when I think of it as a boot camp for fitting out young soldiers of Christ for the greatest combat of the world,
• or when I think of it as a fortress for protection or a hospital for healing or a supply depot for replenishing the troops or a retreat center for R and R,
• and I get especially excited when I think of the family as a launching pad for missiles of missionary zeal aimed at the unreached peoples of the world.

Instilling in Our Children a Vision of God’s Triumph

Paul says, “Don’t provoke your children to anger.” What does he mean? He doesn’t mean don’t cross their will. He doesn’t mean don’t deny their desires. He means don’t cross their will for no good purpose. Don’t deny their desires without making it a part of some great vision of God’s purposes in the world. Show your children something great to live for, so that when you cross their will and deny their desire, it’s because you are fitting them for some great purpose of God!

Anger comes from feeling that a parent’s rules are petty and trivial—that they don’t have anything to do with something really great or important. But a child who sees that the rules of the home and their consistent enforcement are connected to some great vision of life and some great cause to live for will not harbor resentment toward their parents. They will be like young soldiers who may complain now and then about the toughness of the training but would die any day with the captain, because the cause he stands for is so great. Parents who don’t see discipline as part of some great vision of what their children might become for God will wind up using discipline to increase their own private comfort. And children will see that and eventually become angry.

So I think it is in the spirit and wording of our text today to say that the great challenge for parents is to give their children a vision of God’s triumph in the world, and to instill in them the thrilling hope of fighting on the side of truth and righteousness and joy and victory.

Ten Basic Ways to Instill This Vision

What then should we do? Well, sometimes it helps just to remind ourselves of the obvious things we so easily neglect. That’s what I want to do. And I hope that it stirs us all up to be really radical Christians.

1. Make All of Life God-Saturated

The first thing parents need to do to raise children who hope in the triumph of God is to make all of life God-saturated.

I can remember the blankets that were on my bed when I was a little boy. There was a green one and there was a gold one. They were identical except for the color. And that’s good because what mattered to me was not the color but the soft, smooth, silky edge. I used to snuggle down, pull the covers up around my neck, and then find that soft two-inch silky border of the blanket and hold it between my fingers as I went to sleep. The softness and smoothness and coolness of it made me feel secure and happy.

I think of that blanket now as a picture of the way a lot of church people treat God. He is the soft, smooth, comfortable border of their lives. He is not woven all through life. He is there on Sunday in a kind of external way. And he is there in times of crisis and trouble. But he is not pervasive. Life is not saturated with God.

He makes no difference in how much TV the family watches or what they watch. He makes no difference in whether the music in the home edifies the spirit or drags it down. He makes no difference in what the family does on the Lord’s Day to keep it holy. He makes no difference in the disciplines of eating and exercising and sleeping. He makes no difference in what kind of car or house or clothes or furniture they buy. He just seems to be irrelevant most of the time.

And kids of course know this. And they draw from it the obvious conclusion—God is nothing very relevant to my life, and the cause of Christ is nothing great and all-consuming. God is not exciting enough to build your whole life around. He is a kind of necessary evil to be tolerated on Sunday but a dispensable drag on Monday through Friday. You can read this pretty easily from the kids that come from such homes.

So the first thing we must do is to be radical Christians—or I should say, simply, real Christians. We should saturate all our daily life with God. He should be the source and goal of all our acts. “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). The children will see it and by God’s grace will believe that the triumph of God is the greatest thing in the world.

2. Pray

That triumph comes only by grace and only in answer to prayer. Prayer is the first and fundamental way that we join forces with God in his victory over sin and evil and unbelief. And so the second thing we must do as parents is pray for our children and teach them to pray.

We need to pour our hearts out in secret where none but God knows what we say, pleading for the salvation and holiness and perseverance of our children. And our Father who sees in secret will reward us.

We need to pray in the presence of our children so that they can hear our longings and read our hearts and learn themselves to pray. And we need to pray with our children so that they have a chance to pray in a loving environment.

How many great men have testified to the power of their father’s and their mother’s prayers. Augustus Strong, who was a Baptist seminary president at the end of the nineteenth century and who wrote a systematic theology still in print wrote in his autobiography,

One of the earliest things I remember is [my mother] taking me into a dimly lighted closet every Saturday afternoon after the day’s work was done and kneeling with me beside a chest while she taught me how to pray. I remember her suggesting to me the thoughts and, when I could not command the words, her putting into my mouth the very words, of prayer. I shall never forget how, one day, as I had succeeded in uttering some poor words of my own, I was surprised by drops falling upon my face. They were my mother’s tears. My mother’s teaching me how to pray has given me ever since my best illustration of the Holy Spirit’s influence in prayer. When we know not what to pray for as we ought, he, with more than a mother’s skill and sympathy, helps our infirmities and makes intercession within us while Christ makes intercession for us before the throne. (p. 80)

3. Demonstrate the Importance of the Bible

The third thing we must do to raise up children who hope in the triumph of God is make the Bible the most important book in their lives.

William Quayle, a great old Methodist preacher from 60 years ago, looked back on his parents’ home and said, “I would rather have been the son of a woman and a man, who in their penury could not leave to the child of their love . . . anything but a Bible, than to have been descended from all the majesties of history” (William Alfred Quayle, by M. S. Rice, 1928, p. 31).

I just read yesterday a little article by William Frankena who teaches philosophy in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He said that when he was a boy, his father read at least one chapter from the Bible after every meal and that they finished the Bible every year for 16 years.

Most of us are so afraid of a little resistance from our children that we set very small goals by the standards of our ancestors. After years of reading systematically through books of the Bible, we are working on memorizing verses this year at the breakfast table. We have memorized 29 verses so far this year.

We need to help our children feel what Eugene Nida just wrote this month in a summary of his life as a Bible consultant for Bible translating around the world. He said,

Another important privilege [of this work] was to realize that the message of the Holy Scriptures is certainly the most important and meaningful message for the modern day. [Do our kids see this conviction in our use of the Bible?] To see how an intelligible, clear translation of the Scriptures could have a transforming effect upon a psychologically distraught hippie, upon a self-satisfied and smug intellectual, and upon a depressed and oppressed Indian community in the Andes made me realize that there is no real substitute for this good news. (”My Pilgrimage in Mission,” IBMR, Ap 1988, p. 62)

We must show our children that this book is the most important book in our lives and that it contains the answers to life’s greatest questions and that it is the battle plan for the triumph of God.

There is so much more to say about what we must be as parents if we are to raise up children who hope in the triumph of God and who throw their lives into the great cause of Christ.

4. Be Living Examples of Faith

If we had time, we would talk of the need to be living examples of faith and hope for our children in very practical ways. And I would tell you stories about how my father was totally dependent for our livelihood on invitations from churches to preach, but how he said, when there were big holes in his schedule, that God would provide for those who trust him. He believed it. And it never occurred to me as his son to doubt God’s word or my father’s faith that God will always triumph.

5. Be Happy

We would talk about the need to be happy lest our children get the impression that the triumph of God would be the triumph of gloom.

6. Discipline

We would talk about the need for firm, no-nonsense corporal discipline and recall what it did in the life of Amy Carmichael to fit her, as Elizabeth Elliot says, “for the buffettings she would have to endure” on the way to the triumph of God.

7. Be Humble and Willing to Apologize

We would talk about humility and the willingness to apologize to our children, and show them that the cross can triumph even over a dad’s mistakes.

8. Worship Together

We would talk about the need to worship together so that the children can see mom and dad praise God and bow in reverence and cherish the preaching of God’s Word, and get a foretaste of what it will be when the Lord comes in triumph at the end of the age.

9. Uphold Standards of Everyday Holiness

And we would talk about standards of everyday holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Standards of sexual purity, and financial integrity, and rigorous truthfulness, and self-control, and hard work—what it means in practical everyday terms to be on the side of the justice and grace that will someday triumph over all evil.

10. Love

And finally we would talk about love. Parents loving children and children learning to love—learning that in the end everything is in vain without love, that in the world love is the visible expression of faith in the triumph of God, that in the soul love no matter what it costs is the way of joy.

Our great challenge from Family Week is to be the kind of church and the kind of parents that raise up children—old and young—who hope in the triumph of God.

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Marriage Is Meant for Making Children…Disciples of Jesus, Part 2

by John Piper – Listen |   Watch |   Download

Ephesians 6:1-4

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

The ultimate meaning of marriage—the ultimate purpose of marriage—is to dramatize on the earth the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. What we saw last time was that this flesh-and-blood drama of the love between Christ and the church is the God-designed setting for making children—and for making them disciples of Jesus. These are two purposes for marriage. And the ultimate one creates the God-ordained setting for the other one. Ultimately, marriage is a flesh-and-blood drama of how Christ (dramatized by the husband) loves his church, and how the church (dramatized by the wife) is devoted to Christ. And this flesh-and-blood drama creates the setting—the physical, emotional, moral, spiritual nest—for the other purpose of marriage, namely, bringing children into the world and bringing them to Jesus.

Empty-Nesters

In the missionary prayer letter I read this week from Steve and Kim Blewett, one of our veteran missionary families to Papua New Guinea, they explained that both their children are married now (Matthew and Merilee). So under Steve’s and Kim’s picture were the words “empty-nesters.” Everybody in our culture knows the meaning of the term empty-nester. Behind it is the assumption that one of the meanings of marriage is to be a nest for the younger birds until they can fly and find their own worms and build their own nests. And if we are Christians, we say that the very essence of that nest is the flesh-and-blood drama created by a husband and a wife living and showing and teaching the covenant-love between Christ and his church. That activity is the essence of the nest.

A Focus on Fathers

So the question today is: What is supposed to happen with children in this drama? What is supposed to happen to the children that God puts in this flesh-and-blood parable of his Son’s love and the church’s devotion? What happens in this nest for the sake of the younger birds? In answering this question, there are two reasons why I will focus on fathers. The less important reason is that it’s Father’s Day, and the more important reason is that in the text Paul begins by referring to parents in verse 1 and then shifts to a focus on fathers in verse 4.

Notice verse 1: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” So clearly both parents are giving guidance and instruction that can be obeyed, because the children are told to obey their parents, both mother and father. In this nest, both mother and father are teaching and modeling and guiding and disciplining.

But then notice what happens when we get to verse 4. We might expect Paul to continue the united focus on parents and say, “Parents, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” But that is not what he says. He says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” So I made the point last time that in marriage and in this nest created by marriage, fathers have a leading responsibility in raising children. Not a sole responsibility, but a leading one. The way I like to say it is that if there is a problem with the children at the Piper household, and if Jesus knocks on the door, and Noel comes to the door, he is going to say, “Hello, Noel, is the man of the house home? We need to talk.” Not that Noel bears no responsibility. But I bear the leading responsibility in seeing that the children are brought up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Headship Extended to Raising Children

This leading responsibility in raising the children is simply the natural continuation of the leading responsibility in relation to the wife. Back in Ephesians 5:23, 25, Paul said, “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. . . . Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” God doesn’t make the husband the leader in relationship to his wife and then make the wife the leader in relation to the children. We husbands bear the responsibility in both directions. If it were otherwise the children would be very confused. In fact, millions of children today are confused and a host of personal and social problems can probably be traced to this confusion.

So when Paul says in verse 4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” he is simply extending the implications of headship in relationship to our wives to the leading responsibility for the upbringing of our children. That is what it means to be a married man: sacrificial, loving headship in relationship to our wives, and firm, tender leadership in relationship to the united task of raising our children in the Lord. So that is what we want to think about today. What does Ephesians 6:4 call a father to do? Someday perhaps we will do a whole series of messages on parenting. But this is not it. So I am going to focus only on one part of verse 4, namely, the charge not to provoke our children to anger.

Why Anger?

In Ephesians 6:4, Paul begins by saying that fathers should not do something. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.” Of all the things Paul could have encouraged fathers not to do, he chooses this one. Amazing. Why this one? Why not, Don’t discourage them? Or pamper them? Or tempt them to covet or lie or steal? Or why not, Don’t abuse them? Or neglect them? Or set a bad example for them? Or manipulate them? Of all the things he could have warned fathers against, why this: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger”?

Anger Arises Against Authority

He doesn’t tell us why. So let me guess from what I know of Scripture and life. I’ll suggest two reasons. First, he warns against provoking anger because anger is the most common emotion of the sinful heart when it confronts authority. Dad embodies authority. Apart from Christ, the child embodies self-will. And when the two meet, anger flares. A two-year-old throws a tantrum and a teenager slams the door—or worse.

So I think Paul is saying, there is going to be plenty of anger with the best of parenting, so make every effort, without compromising your authority or truth or holiness, to avoid provoking anger. Consciously be there for the child with authority and truth and holiness in ways that try to minimize the response of anger. We’ll come back to how.

Anger Devours Other Emotions

The second reason, Paul may focus on not provoking anger in our children is because this emotion devours almost all other good emotions. It deadens the soul. It numbs the heart to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness. So Paul knows that if a dad can help a child not be overcome by anger, he may unlock his heart to a dozen other precious emotions that make worship possible and make relationships sweet. Paul is trying to help fathers do what he had to do with his spiritual children. Listen to the heart-language of 2 Corinthians 6:11-13: “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

So what shall we say to us dads about this matter of anger in our children? First, we should say that this verse may not be used as emotional blackmail by the children. Blackmail would say, “I am angry, Dad, so you are wrong.” Some people never grow out of this childish self-centeredness: “My emotions are the measure of your love; so if I am unhappy, you are not loving me.” We have all experienced this kind of manipulation. We know Paul does not mean that because Jesus himself made many people angry, and he never sinned or failed to love perfectly. Since all children are sinners, therefore, even the best and most loving and tender use of authority will provoke some children sometimes to anger.

Avoiding Legitimate Anger in Our Children

So the point of verse 4a is not that any time a child is angry a father has sinned. The point is to warn fathers that there is a huge temptation to say things and do things and neglect things that will cause legitimately avoidable anger in our children. Most of us are aware of the obvious things to avoid: yelling, unjust and excessive punishment, hypocrisy, verbal putdowns, etc. But even more important than avoiding the obvious aggravators, we fathers should think about what kinds of preemptive things we can do that don’t just avoid anger but diminish or remove anger. That’s the real challenge.

Think of this: God has never done anything that should legitimately cause anger in any of his children. We are never warranted in getting angry at God. Ever. It happens. And we should admit it, and tremble, and repent, and turn back to humble trust in his sovereign goodness. But even though God has never done anything that legitimately provokes our anger at him, what has he done about the breakdown in our relationship with him? He has taken initiatives to heal it. Initiatives that were infinitely costly to him.

Overcoming Anger by the Death of Jesus

Look back at what Paul says about overcoming anger in relationship to God’s Fatherhood. This text is a model for us fathers about one of the most crucial strategies for overcoming anger in our children. Look at Ephesians 4:31-5:2. Here God, you could say, is speaking to his children: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another . . . .” Now, so far, it is just a command: Don’t be angry; be forgiving. But commands are powerless in and of themselves. What comes next is powerful: “. . . as God in Christ forgave you.” So here is our Father in heaven sending his own Son (“God in Christ forgave you”) to pay the price for our sinful anger. Our Father is not just telling us not to be angry; rather, at great cost to himself, he is overcoming his anger and our anger in the death of Jesus.

Then in the next verse, Ephesians 5:1, he says explicitly that he is playing the role of a Father in this: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” We are children of God if we are united to Christ by faith. He is our Father. He has taken very painful initiatives to overcome his wrath and our sin—our anger. We are infinitely loved by God in Christ. So, fathers, imitate your heavenly Father.

Replacing Anger with Joy

So the point I am stressing is this: When Paul says in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,” don’t just stop doing things that provoke anger; start doing things that remove anger—overcome anger. Start doing things that awaken in the heart of a child other wonderful emotions so that they are not devoured by anger—the great emotion eater.

The main task in all this is that you overcome your own anger and replace it with tenderhearted joy. Joy that spills over onto your children. When the mouth of dad is mainly angry, the tender emotions of a child are consumed. In other words, being the kind of father God calls us to be means being the kind of Christian and the kind of husband God calls us to be.

The Gospel Is the Key

And being a Christian means receiving forgiveness freely from God for all our failures and all our anger. It means letting the smile of God in Christ melt the decades of hardened, numbing, emotionless, low-grade anger. And then letting that healing flow to others. “Let all . . . anger . . . be put away from you . . . . Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” God forgave you. God has been kind to you. God is tenderhearted to you. It is all because of Christ. Therefore, in Christ, by the Spirit, fathers, we can do this. We can put away anger, and we can forgive, and we can experience and awaken in our children tenderheartedness with a whole array of precious emotions that may have been eaten up by anger. They can live again. In you. And in your children.

“Fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger.” Be like God to them. It was very costly. He did not spare his own divine Son in order to rescue other children from his own wrath and from their own rebellious rage. God does not call us do this before he does it for us. That’s the gospel. Before he commands us to love the way he does (5:1), he forgives all our failures to love. Get this, fathers! I am not calling you to love your children like this so that you will have a Father in heaven who is for you. It’s the other way around. I am telling you that God, by the sacrifice and obedience of his Son, Jesus, through faith alone, has already become totally for you. “And if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).

God Has Forgiven You

And now, after becoming that kind of forgiving, supporting, tender, sacrificial Father to us fathers, he calls us: “Be imitators of God as loved children” (Eph. 5:1). Experience the fullness of God’s tender and tough emotions. He has overcome his wrath. He has forgiven our sin. And in him—if you will have it—there is healing for decades of soul-destroying anger.

What our children need from us is that we experience the fullness of God’s offer of healing. Here is the dynamic of fatherhood: As God has forgiven you, forgive your wife and forgive your children (Ephesians 4:32). Sever the root of the whole cycle of anger by savoring to the depths of your soul the preciousness of God’s forgiveness. Don’t provoke your children to anger. Show them in your own soul how it can be replaced with tenderhearted joy.

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Marriage Is Meant for Making Children…Disciples of Jesus, Part 1

by John Piper – Listen |   Watch |   Download

Ephesians 6:1-4

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

I have tried to show from Scripture that the main meaning of marriage is to display the covenant-keeping love
between Christ and his church. In other words, marriage was designed by God most deeply, most importantly, to be a parable or a drama of the way Christ loves his church and the way the church loves and follows to Christ. This is the most important thing for all husbands and wives to know about the meaning of their marriage.

Marriage Portrays the Magnificent

The key passage has been Ephesians 5:23-25: “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Don’t be so familiar with this that it doesn’t strike you as amazing. Where in all the world would anyone talk about marriage this way? In three verses, he says it three times:

• Verse 23: marriage: even as Christ is the head of the church.
• Verse 24: marriage: as the church submits to Christ.
• Verse 25: marriage: as Christ loved the church.

fWhat is the most important meaning of marriage? It is found in the words: “as Christ . . . as the church . . . as Christ.” The ultimate meaning of marriage is not in marriage itself. It is not in the husband and not in the wife and not in the offspring. The ultimate meaning of marriage is in: “as Christ,” “as the church,” “as Christ.” Marriage is a magnificent thing because it is modeled on something magnificent and points to something magnificent. And the love that binds this man and woman in marriage is a magnificent love because it portrays something magnificent—“as Christ loved the church” and “as the church submits to Christ.” The greatness of marriage is not in itself. The greatness of marriage is that it displays something unspeakably great, Christ and the church.

Filling the Earth . . . With Worshipers of Jesus

Now what I want to add today is that marriage is for making children . . . disciples of Jesus. There is a double meaning that I hope will help you remember the point. Marriage is for making children—that is, procreation. Having babies. This is not the main meaning of marriage. But is an important one and a biblical one. But then I add the words disciples of Jesus. “Marriage is for making children disciples of Jesus.” Here the focus shifts. This purpose of marriage is not merely to add more bodies to the planet. The point is to increase the number of followers of Jesus on the planet.

The effect of saying it this way is that couples who cannot make children because of issues of infertility can still aim to make children followers of Jesus. God’s purpose in making marriage the place to have children was never merely to fill the earth with people, but to fill the earth with worshipers of the true God. One way for a marriage to fill the earth with worshipers of the true God is to procreate and bring the children up in the Lord. But that’s not the only way. When the focus of marriage becomes, “Make children disciples of Jesus,” the meaning of marriage in relation to children is not mainly, “Make them,” but, “Make them disciples.” And the latter can happen, even where the former doesn’t.

Where We’re Heading

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Here’s where we are going. First, I want us to see that God’s original plan in creation was for men and women to marry and have children. Having children is God’s will. Second, I want us to see that in the fallen world we live in, not only is marrying not an absolute calling on all people, but producing children in marriage is not an absolute calling on all couples. Normal, good, painful, glorious—but not absolutely required of all. Thirdly, we will focus on what Ephesians 6:1-4 says about how marriage becomes the means for making children disciples of Jesus.

1. Having Children Is God’s Will

First, the meaning of marriage normally includes, by God’s design, giving birth to children and raising them in Christ. Genesis 1:26-28:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

After the flood we read in Genesis 9:1, “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’” This was God’s original design. Marriage is the place for making children and filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord the way the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). It has never ceased to be a good thing. “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:4-5).

And in the New Testament no one is more positive about children than Jesus himself. Mark 10:13-14 says, “They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” So from beginning to end, the Bible puts a huge value on having and raising and blessing children. If you are among the many at Bethlehem with large families, be affirmed! It is a magnificent calling. We will come back to it in a moment. This is one of the great meanings of marriage—to bear and raise children for the glory of God.

2. Having Children Is Not Ultimate

But the second main point I want to make is that, while the meaning of marriage normally includes giving birth to children, this is not an absolute. In this fallen, sinful age, in desperate need of knowing the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, nature by itself does not dictate when or whether to beget children. The decision about whether to conceive children is not ultimately a decision about what is natural, but about what will magnify the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

In other words, there’s an analogy between the singleness question and the children question. God said in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” So it sounds, at first, like marriage is always the way to go. Then the unmarried Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 7 and verse 26, “I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. . . . I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is.” So there are different gifts and different callings. Marriage is not absolute.

So it is with conceiving children. In the beginning, God said to mankind, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” That’s normal. That’s good. But it’s not absolute any more than marriage is absolute. What is absolute is to pursue spiritual children, not natural children. Marriage is not absolutely for making children. But it is absolutely for making children followers of Jesus. Consider a few passages.

Having Hundreds of Children

In Mark 10:29-30, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” Here Jesus shifts the absolute from having children biologically to having hundreds of children through the family of Christ and through spiritual influence. It might include adoption. It might include foster care. It might include making your home a place for backyard Bible clubs. It might include hospitality in a neighborhood where your home is every kid’s favorite place. It might include your nursery job or your care for your nieces and nephews or the Sunday School class you teach. The point is: Marriage is not absolutely for making children; but it is absolutely for making children followers of Jesus one way or the other, directly or indirectly.

Being “Children of God”

In Romans 9:8, Paul said, “It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” In other words, in God’s kingdom, bringing “children of the flesh” into being is not absolute, but seeking to bring into being “children of God” is absolute.

The Most Important Family

In 1 Corinthians 4:15, Paul says, “Though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” This is the most important family in the Christian life, and this is the main way we have children, not by natural birth, but by supernatural birth. For many marriages they go together. But not for all.

Begetting Spiritual Children

One more verse on this point—Romans 16:13: “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.” Here is motherhood extending out beyond the son of birth to the son of affection and care. So I conclude that among Christians mothering and fathering by procreation is natural and good and even glorious when Christ is in it. But it is not absolute. Aiming to bring spiritual children into being is absolute. Marriage is for making children. Yes. But not absolutely. Absolutely marriage is for making children followers of Jesus.

3. Making Marriage a Place for Making Disciples

Now in the few minutes we have left, let’s focus on God’s calling on marriage to be a place for making children followers of Jesus. We will focus this week on mother and father, and next week on the father, both because the father gets special focus in this text and because next Sunday is Father’s Day. Here’s the text again:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Five Brief Observations

The father has a leading responsibility in bringing the children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Notice that verse 1 says, “Children obey your parents.” Both. Not only father or only mother. But parents. But when the focus shifts from the duty of children to the duty of parents, the father is mentioned, not the mother. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” So my first observation that we will unpack next week more closely is that in the marriage, fathers have a leading responsibility in bring up the children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.

Nevertheless, both mother and father are called to this together. Both are mentioned as the special object of the child’s honor. Verse 1: “Children, obey your parents (mother and father) in the Lord.” You can hear this truth in Proverbs 6:20-21: “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.” And you recall that Paul reminded Timothy to hold fast to what his mother and grandmother had taught him as a child (2 Timothy 3:14; 1:5). So both mother and father bear responsibility in this marriage to bring the children up in the Lord, with dad having the leading responsibility.

It is important that mother and father be united in this effort. It is not always possible because sometimes one spouse is not a believer, and then you do the best you can in finding practical common ground, for example, in the way the children are disciplined. But God’s design is a united front. Both have one goal: This child is to grow up in “the discipline and instruction of the Lord”—grounded and shaped and permeated by the Lord, aiming to honor the Lord. God does not design that we be divided on this. The children need one united front coming from mom and dad. Don’t confuse the children. Work through your differences of what to teach, and how and when to discipline, and then stand united before the children. Don’t let the children manipulate you against each other. Make that a hopeless ploy. God is one.

Which leads to the fourth observation. The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children. Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation. The children will have years of exposure to what the universe is like before they know there is a universe. They will experience the kind of authority there is in the universe and the kind of justice there is in the universe and the kind of love there is in the universe before they meet the God of authority and justice and love who created and rules the universe. Children are absorbing from dad his strength and leadership and protection and justice and love; and they are absorbing from mother her care and nurture and warmth and intimacy and justice and love—and, of course, all these overlap.

And all this is happening before the child knows anything about God, but it is profoundly all about God. Will the child be able to recognize God for who he really is in his authority and love and justice because mom and dad have together shown the child what God is like. The chief task of parenting is to know God for who he is in many attributes and then to live in such a way with our children that we help them see and know God. And, of course, that will involve directing them always to the infallible portrait of God in the Bible.

Finally, God has ordained that both mother and father be involved in raising the children because they are husband and wife before they are mother and father. And what they are as husband and wife is where God wants children to be: As husband and wife, they are a drama of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and the church. That is where God wants children to be. His design is that children grow up watching Christ love the church and watching the church delight in following Christ. His design is that the beauty and strength and wisdom of this covenant relationship be absorbed by the children from the time they are born.

Parents Pointing to Christ and the Church

So what turns out is that the deepest meaning of marriage—displaying the covenant love between Christ and the church—is underneath this other meaning of marriage—making children disciples of Jesus. It is all woven together. Good marriages make good places for children to grow up and see the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love.

May the Lord give us a united focus on what really matters in marriage: Husbands and wives loving like Christ and the church, and the children seeing it, and by God’s grace, loving what they see.

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Fathers, Bring Them Up in the Discipline & Instruction of the Lord

by John Piper – Listen |   Watch

Ephesians 6:1-4

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

My aim in this message is threefold. First, in obedience to Ephesians 6:1-2, to honor my father. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’” When children are younger and moving toward adulthood, they should honor their father especially by obeying him. I don’t mean to the exclusion of mothers. But the focus today will be on fathers. As children move out of childhood into adulthood the way we honor our fathers is not primarily in the category of obedience, but rather by tribute and care. Today I pay tribute to my father even as the days of increasing care have come.

The promise in verse 3, taken from Deuteronomy 5:16, “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land,” I take to be a general encouragement based on the fact that in the days of Israel when there was humility and respect and obedience to parents God protected the people from their enemies and prospered them. But when they forsook his laws and became arrogant and disrespectful and disobedient he gave them over to their enemies. The point is not that every child who is obedient will live a long life. The point is that God delights in obedience and gives special blessings to families and churches and peoples where that kind of humility and respect and obedience prevails. So the first part of my aim in this message is to honor my father by paying him public tribute.

The second part of my aim is to inspire fathers to be worthy of this kind of tribute—to help you see the glory of your calling to exhibit the fatherhood of God to your children and lead them to faith and Christian maturity. I pray that Christ will take what I say about my own father and will use it to make you better fathers.

Third, my aim is to glorify the Fatherhood of God whose Fatherhood is the source and pattern of all human fatherhood. Human fatherhood exists to display the beauty of God’s Fatherhood. Our highest calling as fathers is to be the image of God’s fatherhood to our children. I think this is implied in the words of verse 4b: “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” What does it mean that our discipline and instruction should be “of the Lord”?

It means, in part, that in our fathering we take our cues from the Lord Jesus. Jesus, in his human nature and in his earthly ministry directed the disciples again and again to the Father in heaven. And in his life and death he modeled for us how to relate to God as our Father. His longest prayer in John 17 begins, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you’ (v. 1). The discipline and instruction of the Lord takes its cues from the Lord Jesus who lived and died to glorify his Father in heaven. No father here should do less. Our calling as fathers is to exhibit the glory of the Fatherhood of God.

So I turn with a sense of deepest gratitude and joy to pay tribute to my father publicly and through this to honor my Father in heaven who adopted me, an undeserving sinner, into his everlasting and supremely happy family on the basis of Christ’s blood and righteousness alone.

My father is 86 years old and lives in home called Shepherd’s Care owned and operated by Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina—the school from which he graduated and which conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. His short term memory is weak, but his memory of Christ and his word is strong. And for that I thank God.

Here is a fragment of the legacy of truth imparted to me by my father. And I hope that you will see before we are done that the word “imparted” is no mere transmission of information, but involves a whole life of demonstration of what he taught. I will mention eleven precious truths imparted to me by my father.

1. There is a great, majestic God in heaven, and we were meant to live for his glory not ours.

Most of these truths that I will mention are rooted in my memory of particular texts that were branded on my mind at home. Few texts were more often on Daddy’s lips in relation to me than 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I am sure that in heaven some day the Lord will make plain the unbreakable chain of influences that led from that verse when I was a boy to the mission statement of this church: “We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” This won’t be the only influence you will see of my father on that mission statement.

2. When things don’t go the way they should, God always makes them turn for good.

Even more prominent in my growing up was the presence of Romans 8:28 in our family: “God works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.”

I have several vivid memories of this truth. One was in 1974 when I rode with my father in the ambulance from Atlanta to Greenville with my mother’s body in the hearse following behind. They had just been flown in from Israel where Mother had been killed in an accident and Daddy was seriously injured. All the way home, for three and a half hours, he would weep and talk and weep and talk. He was 56. They had been married 36 years. And when he talked it was Romans 8:28. I remember the very words: “God must have a reason for me to live. God must have a reason for me to live.” In other words, God governs our accidents and makes no mistakes.

I will never cease to be thankful that I heard and saw the truth of Romans 8:28 in my father’s life, “When things don’t go the way they should, God always makes them turn for good.”

3. God can be trusted.

How many times did I hear the words of Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.” And Philippians 4:19, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

I can see us as a family when I was just a child. We were all (Mother, Daddy, my older sister, Beverly) sitting around a card table my parents’ bedroom folding letters and stuffing envelopes which would be sent to pastors asking them to consider having my father come lead their churches in evangelistic meetings. This was Daddy’s life—he was a full time evangelist—and our livelihood. The answers to these letters meant bread on the table and paid bills. Then we prayed over these envelopes and Daddy closed in a spirit of utter confidence: God will answer and meet every need. He can be trusted.

He told me more than once of a financial crisis when I was six years old in which he almost lost everything. And he said that God used Psalm 37:5 to sustain him and bring him through: “Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act.”

And so I saw and I learned: God can be trusted.

4. Life is precarious, and life is precious. Don’t presume that you will have it tomorrow and don’t waste it today.

My memory of my Father’s preaching was that he always began with humor but within seconds he was blood earnest and talking about heaven and hell, and sin and Christ and life and death. One text above all others rings in my ears with terrible seriousness. He squinted when he said it and his mouth pursed tightly the way it does after you taste a lemon: “It is appointed unto men once to die, after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27) It made a huge impression on me as a boy.

The motto on Daddy’s college wall was, “The wise man prepares for the inevitable”

The plaque in our kitchen when I was growing up was: “Only one life ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

The stories of wasted lives tumbled from his mouth:

“During a South Carolina [campaign] a lovely high school senior attended every night but refused to accept Christ. Shortly after the crusade while driving her car over a treacherous railroad crossing, she was killed instantly by a freight train she failed to see coming.”

“While in a Pennsylvania campaign, I witnessed a whole town shaken by the sudden deaths of six young men. Driving home from an afternoon football practice, they failed to stop at a major intersection and were struck broadside by a heavy truck. Six were dead within three hours.”

“I’ve seen babies die in their mothers’ arms. I’ve seen little boys and girls struck down before their lives had scarcely begun. I’ve witnessed men die in the prime of life and others at the height of success.” (Menace, pp. 49-50)

He told story of a girl who said she would give her life to God when she was old. A wise old woman sent her a bouquet of dead flowers, and when the girl expressed offense, she said, “Isn’t that the way you are treating God?”

And most memorable of all to my young mind: The old man saved in the eleventh hour of his life weeping in Daddy’s arms: “I’ve wasted it. I’ve wasted it.”

5. A merry heart does good like a medicine and Christ is the great heart-Satisfier.

That’s a quote from Proverbs 17:22. My father has been the happiest man I have ever known. Here is the kind of things he said in a sermon called “A Good Time and How to Have It.”

“Right from the start, let’s get one thing straight; a Christian is not a sour puss. I grant you that some of them look and act that way, but you simply can’t blame God for it.”

“Some folks seem to have been born in the objective case, the contrary gender and the bilious mood.”

“Mama, that mule must have religion too, he looks just like Grandpa.” (Good Time, p. 7).

He preached another sermon called “Saved, Safe and Satisfied.” He said, “He is God. When you fully trust Him you have all that God is and all that God has. You cannot be otherwise than satisfied with the perfect fullness of Christ.” (Good Time, p. 48).

He said worldly Christians are like a cow with her head stuck through fence eating stubby grass on the highway while a beautiful green pasture lies behind her.

A merry heart does good like a medicine and Christ is the great heart-Satisfier. What a legacy of joy my father has left!

6. A Christian is a great doer not a great don’ter.

We Pipers were fundamentalists without the attitude. We had our lists of things not to do. But that wasn’t the main thing. Here’s what my father preached in a sermon called The Greatest Menace to Modern Youth.

Millions insist upon thinking that Christianity is a negative religion. You don’t do this and you can’t do that. You don’t go here and your can’t go there. To the contrary, the Bible constantly sounds the triumphant and positive note. “Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only.” . . . “Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do with all your might.”

God wants us to be doers, not don’ters. A Christian who is only a don’ter is a sour saint who spread gloom wherever he goes. A don’ter is usually a hypocritical Pharisee. Years ago, I heard the late Dr. Bob Jones say. “Do so fast you don’t have time to don’t.” That sums it up.

That left an indelible mark on my life. We had strict standards, but I never chaffed under them. They were not the point. Enjoying Christ, doing good and loving people was the point. The rest was just fencing to protect the good field of faith and purity.

7. The Christian life is supernatural.

I have one precious DVD of my father preaching. It is a message on new the new birth. John 3:7 “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” Becoming a Christian was not a mere decision. It was a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

And therefore he believed in prayer—crying out to God to do the miracle of the new birth. We prayed together every night as a family, because the great need in life is supernatural, divine power to live with joy—and that is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, not a work of our own.

I saw that my father’s work was not a human work. It was divine work. Impossible work. But with God all things are possible.

8. Bible doctrine is important but don’t beat people up with it.

At this point he admitted openly to me with grief that our fundamentalist tradition let him down. There was great truth, but too many of them were not great lovers. I can remember him saying: If they only understood Ephesians 4:15, “Speaking the truth in love.” So from as early as I can remember he showed me the importance of both right doctrine and the way of love. They must never be separated.

9. Respect your mother.

If you wanted to see Daddy angry, let one of his children sass our mother. He not only knew the command of God to honor our mothers; he also knew the extraordinary debt that every child owes a mother. Time and again he would compare true love not to married love but to mother’s love. He knew the price my mother paid for him to be away so much. Therefore, he would tolerate no insolence or disrespect toward her. I trembled at the fierce gaze in his eyes if I said something sarcastic to my mother.

10. Be who God made you to be and not somebody else.

My father was short, a good bit shorter than I am. But he was content and could joke about it. The one I remember is that he said he was part of a football team as boy, and the name of the team was “Little potatoes but hard to peel.” I think God delights to make short men great preachers. (Remember John Wesley!)

For me this contentment with being who God made you to be meant freedom. He never forced me or pressured me to be an evangelist or a pastor or anything else. His counsel was always: seek God and be what he has made you to be. And then what your hand finds to do, do it with all your might for the glory of Christ.

I close with one more truth, the central truth of my father’s life. This was what he preached and what he loved. So I will let him preach it one more time to you as we close:

11. People are lost and need to be saved through faith in Jesus Christ.

My father was an evangelist. His absence from home two thirds of the year (in and out, in and out) meant one main thing. Sin and hell are real and horrible, and Jesus Christ is a great savior. Here’s a direct quote from my Dad:

“In my evangelistic career I have had the thrill of seeing people from all walks of life come to Christ. I have seen many professional people saved. I have knelt with Ph.D.’s and led them to Jesus. College professors, bankers, lawyers, doctors. I have seen them all saved.

Then I have seen many from the other side of life come to the Lord. I have put my arm around drunkards in city missions and prayed with them. I have sat by the bedside of dying alcoholics and led them to Christ. I have seen the poor, the forsaken, the derelicts, the outcasts all come to the Savior. Yes, God takes them, too. Isn’t it wonderful that anyone who wants to can come to Christ.” (Grace for the Guilty, p. 111)

Perhaps you never had a father like that, but right now you hear your heavenly father calling, “Come home, come home!” Father’s Day would be a good time to stop running and come home.

I thank you heavenly father for my earthly father. What a legacy he has left to me and my children and grandchildren—and to this church. O, raise up fathers in this church with great legacies of faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

__________

Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Beautifying the Body of Christ

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:22-32

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

Two weeks ago we talked about one aspect of the mystery of Christ mentioned in Ephesians 3:4, namely, the truth that in Jesus the Messiah even Gentiles, not just Jews, are part of God’s people and are full fellow citizens with believing Jews in the true Israel, the body of Christ. This is a mystery not because it is unintelligible, but because it was kept secret for centuries while God focused his saving work and his special self-revelation on the Jewish people. Now it is revealed in the gospel. In the cross Christ reconciles Jew and Gentile to God in one body (Ephesians 2:16).

The Mystery of Marriage

Now today we look at the mystery of Christ and his body from another angle. And the mystery is simply this: the meaning of human marriage is based on another greater marriage designed by God in heaven before creation, namely, the marriage of Christ to the church.

The One-Flesh Relationship

We see this in verses 28–32. Paul says in verses 28–29 that “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body.” What Paul says there, is that a husband’s loving his wife is like loving himself because she is like his own body. And Christ’s loving the church is like his loving himself because we are part of his body. So there is a comparison here: a husband’s oneness with his wife is like Christ’s oneness with his church.

Then in verse 31 Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh.” In other words, the reason a man’s love to his wife is like love to himself is because in the beginning God designed marriage so that a “one flesh” union would be created. If Noël and I are one flesh because of the covenant of marriage, then my love to her is in a profound sense a love to me.

A Picture of the One-Flesh Union of Christ and the Church

Now that much was not a mystery in the Old Testament. That much was revealed in the text of Genesis 2:24. Husband and wife are one flesh. Yet Paul says in verse 32, “This mystery is great.” So what’s the mystery? He goes on to define it: “But I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” The mystery not revealed fully in the Old Testament was that the one-flesh union of human marriage is a picture of the one-flesh union of Christ and his church.

So the new angle on the mystery of Christ that we see today is not what we’ve seen before—that the body of Christ is the fullness of him who fills all in all (1:23) or that the body is made up of both Jews and Gentiles who trust Christ (3:6)—but the new angle on the mystery of Christ today is that the church is the body of Christ because she is the wife of Christ, and husbands and wives are one flesh, one body.

What Does It Mean to Be the Wife of Christ?

So if we want to know who we are today as the church, the body of Christ—if we want to know what it means to be the church and to live like the church—then we need to learn from this passage what it means to be the wife of Christ. What does it mean to have Christ as our husband?

I see at least five things that it means for us to be the wife of Christ. Three of them we will take up this morning and two this evening.

1. Christ Loved Us Before We Were Attractive

It means first that Christ loved us before we were attractive.

Unlike How We Choose Wives

Verse 25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Notice the order here. It’s very important. He loved, and that love moved him to give himself. And verse 26 says that the aim of the self-giving was to sanctify and to cleanse, and verse 27 shows that the effect of that sanctifying is getting rid of spots and wrinkles and making the church beautiful with glory. So the love preceded the beautification.

In other words, Christ did not choose his wife the way we do. He did not look for an attractive woman or an intelligent woman or a even a faithful woman. He chose an unlikely woman. And then he set out to make her attractive and wise and faithful at the cost of his own life.

Free, Unconditional, Electing Love

His love for us did not begin as the love of admiration. His first love for us was not a response to our beauty. We had none. His first love for us was free and unconditional.

It is the love of unconditional election described in Ephesians 1:4, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” We were not chosen because he could see we were holy; he chose us because he planned to make us holy.

We have been loved with the love of unconditional regeneration described in Ephesians 2:4–5, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, (by grace you have been saved).” God chose a dead woman to be his Son’s wife. Dead women do not begin by fulfilling conditions. They begin by being raised from the dead, or being born again.

That is what happened to every member of the body of Christ. Before we could look pretty, or sound wise, or be faithful, the electing love of God chose us and the regenerating love of God raised us from the dead.

A Peculiar, Precious, Covenant Love

Now ponder this for a moment. God means for my wife Noël to experience and to enjoy and to be strengthened and secured by a love coming from me, her husband, that is peculiar to her, and different from the general Christian love I may have for any other woman in the world. The love of a man for a wife is a distinguishing covenant love that is shared by no other woman in his life.

But one of the great theological and experiential tragedies in the church today—and one of the great sources of weakness in the church—is that Christians have learned to enjoy a love from God that is no more peculiar and precious and securing and endearing and distinguishing than the general love that God has for all the world, even those who perish in unbelief. For 200 years the church in America has slipped farther and farther away from the glorious truth that the wife of the Son of God is loved with an electing, regenerating, distinguishing, covenant love that is different from God’s love for the world that is not his wife.

O God loves the world—such that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes on him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). But it is a great sadness when a wife only knows herself loved with the love that her husband has for every woman. The marriage between Christ and his wife is weak—and the church is weak—to the degree that she only feels loved with the same love that allows others in the world to perish. As though there were no peculiar love that chose her and raised her to life and made a covenant with her never to turn away from doing her good.

So the first thing it means for us to be the wife of Christ is that Christ loved us before we were attractive. He loved us and loves us still with a peculiar, distinguishing, electing, regenerating, covenant love. To know this, to have the Spirit testifying of it in your heart, is precious and powerful beyond words.

2. Christ Gave Himself for the Church

The second thing it means to be the wife of Christ is that Christ gave himself for his wife the church.

Verse 25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Again Christ did not win his wife the way men do today. He paid a dowry for her and the dowry was his life. To be the wife of Christ means to be loved not only with an electing love that chooses us before the foundation of the world and not only with a regenerating love that raises us to life when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but also with a self-sacrificing love that dies for us (as Romans 5:7–10 says) while we were helpless and sinful and ungodly and enemies.

In other words, he did not simply die for an unworthy woman or for a reluctant woman, but for a woman who found him repulsive. Now don’t miss the force of this. Paul says in verse 25 that Christ gave himself for the church. In other words, in his dying he had the church especially in view. It was for her—uniquely for her, especially for her, peculiarly for her—that he died. The powerful saving, cleansing, sanctifying, beautifying effects of the cross were directed to a fiancée who not only was unattractive in herself, but who found Christ himself repulsive and did not have any intention of marrying him. Specifically for her he gave his life. For us. That is what it means to be the wife of Christ.

3. Christ Cleansed the Church from the Guilt of Sin

Third, being the wife of Christ means being cleansed by him from the guilt of sin.

Verses 25–26: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.”

If you have to be flattered in order to feel good, then the marriage between Christ and his wife will not make you feel good. It is a highly unflattering picture that he must bathe us in order to marry us. We were unattractive not beautiful; we were enemies not friends; and we were dirty with the guilt and moral filth of sin all over us and inside of us. And he chose us and died for us and raised us to life and cleansed us. He took away our filth. He took away our guilt. He bathed us and made us clean before an all-holy God.

The water of baptism is a representation of that spiritual washing. Notice that the cleansing from sin in verse 26 comes from the self-sacrifice of Christ in verse 25. So it is with baptism. It represents a dying with Christ as we are buried with him in water and it represents a being cleansed by Christ through that very death in water. So immersion in water provides a perfect symbolic combination of dying with Christ and being cleansed by Christ. And they must be combined because it is the death of Christ that is the power that cleanses. 1 John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” Baptism represents a burial and a bath; because the burial is the bath.

Ezekiel’s Picture of God’s Marriage to His People

Let me bring this message to a close by giving you one of the most graphic biblical pictures of God’s marriage to his people Israel. It’s found in Ezekiel 16, and I think God means for us to see in it a picture of Christ’s marriage to the church. It catches up what we have seen so far and points us forward to the rest of what it means to be the wife of Christ, which we will look at tonight. Start at verse 3 and read through verse 9.

3 Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 4 As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. 5 No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.

6 When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, “Live!” I said to you while you were in your blood, “Live!” (Notice the sovereign work of God taking a repulsive cast-away and giving her life.)

7 I made you numerous like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall, and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare. 8 Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine, declares the Lord God. 9 Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you, and anointed you with oil.

That is what it means to be the wife of Christ. Cast out, bloody, dirty, as good as dead. And then the Son of God walks by. Stops. Looks at this disgusting, filthy, aborted thing as good as dead and covered with blood, and says, “At last! My wife. My beloved. My chosen one. Live!” And he comes again when she is grown and covers her nakedness and washes away her filth and makes a marriage covenant with her . . . and then beautifies her and prepares to present her to himself in glory.

That’s what we will talk about tonight: the beautifying and the presentation of the church to Christ in glory.

The church is the body of Christ because the church is the wife of Christ. And being the wife of Christ means being loved by Christ before we were attractive. It means being loved with self-sacrificing love. It means he chose us, raised us, cleansed us. All of you who are in Christ: he loves you as a man loves his wife, differently, distinguishingly, unlike any other in the world.

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October 11, 1992, pm
2nd half of sermon on Ephesians 5:22–32
(and using Ezekiel 16:1–14)

What It Means to Be the Wife of Christ

4. Being Made Progressively Holy (Sanctification)

What is it?

• be holy and blameless and without spot or wrinkle (v. 27)
• abstain from sin (1 Thessalonians 4:3)
• go for good deeds (Titus 2:14), LOVE (1 Thessalonians 3:12)
• progressive sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:1; 2 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 10:14)

The Basis of it?

• Christ’s death (2 Corinthians 5:15; 1 Peter 2:24; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 13:12)
• the blood of covenant (Luke 22:20) is a new covenant in my blood (Hebrews 8:6, 10; Ezekiel 36:25–27)

Necessity of it

• see Hebrews 12:14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Romans 6:22–23

Agent of it

• God/Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 13:21)
• Man (2 Corinthians 7:1; John 4:8—and all commands to do right)

Means of it

1. The Word (John 17:17); seeing the glory of God (2 Corinthians 3:18); faith in truth (2 Thessalonians 2:13)
2. Faith (Acts 26:18; Galatians 5:6)

5. Being Presented Finally to Christ, Perfected as His Wife

Does this show a deficient, needy, lonely Christ? No: All his saving work is to fit us to reveal him and enjoy him as all-sufficient. And in this he rejoices.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Marriage: Pursuing Conformity to Christ in the Covenant

by John Piper – Listen

Ephesians 5:21-33

[Submit] to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Based on Grace

You cannot say too often that marriage is a model of Christ and the church. That’s what Noël said. One of the reasons she is right is that this makes clear that marriage is based on grace. Christ pursues his bride, the church, by grace, obtains her for his own by grace, sustains her by grace, and will perfect her for himself by grace. We deserve none of this. We deserve judgment. It is all by grace.

Grace: Treating People Better Than They Deserve

For two weeks, we have emphasized that this grace empowers husbands and wives to keep their covenant by means of forgiveness and forbearance. That emphasis is at the heart of what grace is: treating people better than they deserve. This is one of the central pieces of Christian ethics:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. . . . Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:27-29, 35-36)

Those commands do not cease to be demands of Jesus when we get married. If we are to return good for evil in general, how much more in marriage.

Grace: Power to Stop Sinning

That’s what we have emphasized so far in saying that marriage is based on God’s grace toward us. But now I want to emphasize another truth about grace. It not only gives power to endure being sinned against, it also gives power to stop sinning.

In all our emphasis on forgiving and forbearing, you might get the impression that none of our sinful traits or our annoying idiosyncrasies ever changes—or ever should change. So all we can do is forgive and forbear. But what I want to try to show from Scripture today is that God gives grace not only to forgive and to forbear, but also to change, so that less forgiving and forbearing is needed. That too is a gift of grace. Grace is not just power to return good for evil; it is also the power to do less evil. Even power to be less bothersome. Grace makes you want to change for the glory of Christ and for the joy of your spouse. And grace is the power to do it.

The Gospel Way to Confrontation

But we have come at this, you might say, in a roundabout way. The emphasis on forgiveness and forbearance came first, because it’s the essential rock-solid foundation for change. In other words, rugged covenant commitment based on grace gives the security and hope where the call for change can be heard without it feeling like a threat. Only when a wife or husband feels that the other is totally committed—even if he or she doesn’t change—only then can the call for change feel like grace, rather than an ultimatum.

So today I am emphasizing that marriage should not be and, God willing, need not be static—no change, just endurance. Even that is better than divorce in God’s eyes, and has a glory of its own. But it is not the best picture of Christ and the church. Yes, the endurance tells the truth about Christ and the church. But the unwillingness to change does not.

Ephesians 5:25-27: Beyond Forgiveness and Forbearance

That brings us to our text: just three verses from Ephesians 5. Consider the implications of Ephesians 5:25-27 for marriage as “The Pursuit of Conformity to Christ in the Covenant.” Listen to how these verses take us beyond forgiveness and forbearance. Listen to the way husbands are to love their wives:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Husbands Changing Wives

In Christ’s relationship to the church, he is clearly seeking the transformation of his bride into something morally and spiritually beautiful. And he is seeking it at the cost of his life. Let’s think for a moment about the implications of this passage on how a husband thinks and acts with a view to changing his wife. We will come to the wife’s desire to change her husband in a few minutes.

The first implication is that the husband, who loves like Christ, bears a unique responsibility for the moral and spiritual growth of his wife—which means that over time, God willing, there will be change.

Treading on Dangerous Ground

I realize that at this point—no matter how I come at this—I am treading on dangerous ground. I could be playing right into the hands of a selfish, small-minded, controlling husband who has no sense of the difference between enriching differences between him and his wife and moral and spiritual weaknesses or defects that should be changed. Such a man will likely distort what I am saying into a mandate to control every facet of his wife’s behavior, and the criterion of what he seeks to change will be his own selfish desires cloaked in spiritual language.

But an honest look at this text does not lead us there. It leads us to a very different attitude. Consider three observations:

1) The Husband Is Like Christ, Not Christ

The husband is like Christ, which means he is not Christ. Verse 23: “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.” The word as does not mean that the husband is like Christ in every way. The husband is finite in strength, not omnipotent like Christ. The husband is finite and fallible in wisdom, not all-wise like Christ. The husband is sinful, not perfect like Christ. Therefore, we husbands dare not assume we are infallible. We may err in what we would like to see changed in our wives. That’s the first observation.

2) Conformity to Christ, Not to the Husband

The aim of the godly husband’s desire for change in his wife is conformity to Christ, not conformity to himself. Notice the key words in verses 26 and 27. Verse 26: that he might “sanctify her.” Verse 27: that he might present the church to himself “in splendor.” Verse 27 again: that she might be “holy.” These words imply that our desires for our wives are measured by God’s standard of holiness, not our standard of mere personal preferences.

3) Dying for the Wife

The third observation is the most important: What Paul draws attention to most amazingly is that the way Christ pursues his bride’s transformation is by dying for her. Verse 25-26: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.” This is the most radical thing that has been or could ever be said to a husband about the way he leads his wife into conformity to Christ in the covenant of marriage. Husbands, are we pursuing her conformity to Christ by lording it over her, or by dying for her? When we lead her, or even, if necessary, confront her, are we self-exalting or self-denying? Is there contempt or compassion?

If a husband is loving and wise like Christ in all these ways, his desire for his wife’s change will feel, to a humble wife, like she is being served, not humiliated. Christ clearly desires for his bride to grow in holiness. But he died to bring it about. So, brothers, govern your desire for your wife’s change by the self-denying death of Christ. May God give us the humility and the courage to measure our methods by the sufferings of Christ. (See Titus 2:14; Revelation 19:7.)

Wives Changing Husbands

Now let’s turn to the wife’s desire for her husband’s change. This is not a message about what headship and submission are. But to make the points I am making I have to touch on what headship and submission are not. I have already said that a husband’s headship is not identical to Christ’s headship. It is like it. Similarly, therefore, the wife’s submission to the husband is not identical to her submission to Christ. It is like it. When verse 22 says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” the word as does not mean that Christ and the husband are the same. Christ is supreme, the husband is not. Her allegiance is to Christ first, not first to her husband. The analogy only works if the woman submits to Christ absolutely, not to the husband absolutely. Then she will be in a position to submit to the husband without committing treason or idolatry.

One of the things this implies is that a wife will see the need for change in her husband. And she may and should seek the transformation of her husband, even while respecting him as her head—her leader, protector, and provider. There are several other reasons I say this.

1) Prayer: A Request for Change

One is the function of prayer in the relationship between Christ and his church. A wife relates to Christ the way the church should relate to Christ. The church prays to Christ—or to God the Father through Christ. When the church prays to her husband, she asks him to do things a certain way. If we are sick, we ask him for healing. If we are hungry, we ask for our daily bread. If we are lost, we ask for direction. And so on. Since we believe in the absolute sovereignty of Christ to govern all things, this means that we look at the present situation that he has ordained, and we ask him to change it.

I am only drawing out an analogy here, not an exact comparison. The church never “confronts” Jesus with his imperfection. He has no imperfections. But we do seek from him changes in the situation he has brought about. That is what petitionary prayer is. So wives, on this analogy, will ask their husbands that some things be changed in the way he is doing things.

2) All Husbands Need Change

But the main reason we can say that wives may and should seek their husbands’ transformation is that husbands are only similar to Christ in the relationship with their wives. We are not Christ. And one of the main differences is that we husbands need to change, and Christ doesn’t. We are like Christ in the relationship, but we are not Christ. Unlike Christ, we are sinful and finite and fallible. We need to change. That is clear and universal New Testament teaching. All men and women need to change.

3) Wives Are Loving Sisters in Christ

Another factor to take into account is that wives are not only wives, but in Christ, they are also loving sisters. There is a unique way for a submissive wife to be a caring sister toward her imperfect brother-husband. She will, for example, from time to time, follow Galatians 6:1 in his case: “If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” She will do that for him.

And not only Galatians 6:1, but other passages as well. For example, both of them—spiritual husband and spiritual wife—will obey Matthew 18:15 as necessary, and will do so with the unique demeanor called for by headship and submission: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.”

The Danger of Nagging

All of this has to be balanced by the danger of nagging. It is a sad thing when a woman longs for her man to step up and take responsibility in leading the family spiritually and he won’t do it. We will talk more about that in the weeks to come. But the word nag exists in English to warn us that there is such a thing as excessive exhortation. The apostle Peter warns against this with strong words in 1 Peter 3:1. He says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” This is talking mainly about an unbelieving husband, but the principle applies more widely.

I don’t think that means a wife cannot talk to her husband. But surely it does mean that there is a kind of speaking that is counterproductive. “Without a word” means don’t badger him. Don’t nag him. Be as wise as a serpent and as innocent as a dove: Discern whether any word would be heard. Mainly, Peter says to win him by your respectful and pure conduct (1 Peter 3:2).

Christ Died to Make Change Happen

Which brings us back to our text and what Paul said to husbands. Verses 25-26: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.” It isn’t only wives who seek to win their spouses by their behavior. This is the primary means by which Christ won the church. He died for her. So wives win their husbands mainly by their lives of sacrificial love, and husbands win their wives mainly by lives of sacrificial love.

Forgiving and Forbearing Do Bring About Change

Which means, when you stop and think about it, that everything I said about forgiving and forbearing in the previous two weeks turns out to be not merely a means of enduring what will not change, but a means of changing by means of sacrificial, loving endurance. Few things have a greater transforming impact on a husband or a wife than the longsuffering, forgiving sacrifices of love in the spouse. There is a place for confrontation. There is a place for pursuing conformity to Christ in the covenant of marriage. Life is not all forgiveness and forbearance. Real change can happen. Real change ought to happen. Christ died to make it happen. And he calls us, husbands and wives, to love like that.

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Used by permission: John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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