The Shelter Church, San Diego

SPURGEON I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. Philippians 4:11 These words show us that contentment is not a natural propensity of man. Ill weeds grow apace. Covetousness, discontent, and murmuring are as natural to man as thorns are to the soil. We need not sow thistles and brambles; they come up naturally enough, because they are indigenous to earth: and so, we need not teach men to complain; they complain fast enough without any education. ... But the precious things of the earth must be cultivated. If we would have wheat, we must plough and sow; if we want flowers, there must be the garden, and all the gardener’s care. Now, contentment is one of the flowers of heaven, and if we would have it, it must be cultivated; it will not grow in us by nature; it is the new nature alone that can produce it, and even then we must be specially careful and watchful that we maintain and cultivate the grace which God has sown in us. Paul says, I have learned ... to be content; as much as to say, he did not know how at one time. It cost him some pains to attain to the mystery of that great truth. No doubt he sometimes thought he had learned, and then broke down. And when at last he had attained unto it, and could say, I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content, he was an old, grey-headed man, upon the borders of the gravea poor prisoner shut up in Nero’s dungeon at Rome. We might well be willing to endure Paul’s infirmities, and share the cold dungeon with him, if we too might by any means attain unto his good degree. Do not indulge the notion that you can be contented with learning, or learn without discipline. It is not a power that may be exercised naturally, but a science to be acquired gradually. We know this from experience. Brother, hush that murmur, natural though it be, and continue a diligent pupil in the College of Content.

Piper When Obedience Feels Impossible By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. (Hebrews 11:17)... For many of you right now and for others of you the time is coming obedience feels like the end of a dream. You feel that if you do what the word of God or the Spirit of God is calling you to do, it will make you miserable and that there is no way that God could turn it all for good. Perhaps the command or call of God you hear just now is to stay married or stay single, to stay in that job or leave that job, to get baptized, to speak up at work about Christ, to refuse to compromise your standards of honesty, to confront a person in sin, to venture a new vocation, to be a missionary. And as you see it in your limited mind, the prospect of doing this is terrible it’s like the loss of Isaac, the only son who can be an heir. You have considered every human angle, and it is impossible that it could turn out well. Now you know what it was like for Abraham. This story is in the Bible for you. Do you desire God and his way and his promises more than anything, and do you believe that he can and will honor your faith and obedience by being unashamed to call himself your God, and to use all his wisdom and power and love to turn the path of obedience into the path of life and joy? That is the crisis you face now: Do you desire him? Will you trust him? The word of God to you is: God is worthy and God is able. From The Hope of Exiles on the Earth Would you consider this year-end request from John Piper? Watch

For those feeling far from God...

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Piper How Believers Will Be Judged I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. (Revelation 20:12)... What about the last judgment? Will our sins be remembered? Will they be revealed? Anthony Hoekema puts it wisely like this: The failures and shortcomings of . . . believers . . . will enter into the picture on the Day of Judgment. But and this is the important point the sins and shortcomings of believers will be revealed in the judgment as forgiven sins, whose guilt has been totally covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. Picture it like this. God has a file on every person (the books of Revelation 20:12). All you’ve ever done or said (Matthew 12:36) is recorded there with a grade (from A to F). When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10) to be judged for what [you have] done in the body, whether good or evil, God will open the file and lay out the tests with their grades. He will pull out all the F’s and put them in a pile. Then he will take all the D’s and C’s and pull the good parts of the test out and place them with the A’s, then put the bad with the F’s. Then he will take all the B’s and A’s and pull the bad parts out of them and put them in the F pile, and put all the good parts in the A pile. Then he will open another file (the book of life) and find your name, because you are in Christ through faith. Behind your name will be a wood-stick match made from the cross of Jesus. He will take the match, light it, and set the F pile, with all your failures and deficiencies, on fire and burn them up. They will not condemn you, and they will not reward you. Then he will take from your book of life file a sealed envelope marked free and gracious bonus: life! and put it on the A pile (see Mark 4:24 and Luke 6:38). Then he will hold up the entire pile and declare, By this your life bears witness to the grace of my Father, the worth of my blood, and the fruit of my Spirit. These bear witness that your life is eternal. And according to these you will have your rewards. Enter into the everlasting joy of your Master. From What Will It Be Like at the Judgment?

An appropriate old poem about our efforts in life... A Builder Or a Wrecker As I watched them tear a building down ... A gang of men in a busy town With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell They swung a beam and the side wall fell I asked the foreman, Are these men skilled, And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build? He gave a laugh and said, No, indeed, Just common labor is all I need. I can easily wreck in a day or two, What builders have taken years to do. And I thought to myself, as I went my way Which of these roles have I tried to play? Am I a builder who works with care, Measuring life by rule and square? Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan Patiently doing the best I can? Or am I a wrecker who walks to town Content with the labor of tearing down? O Lord let my life and my labors be That which will build for eternity! Author Unknown [The Increase, 35th Anniversary Issue, 1993, p. 9]

SPURGEON There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. 2 Timothy 4:8... Doubting one! thou hast often said, I fear I shall never enter heaven. Fear not! all the people of God shall enter there. I love the quaint saying of a dying man, who exclaimed, I have no fear of going home; I have sent all before me; God’s finger is on the latch of my door, and I am ready for him to enter. But, said one, are you not afraid lest you should miss your inheritance? Nay, said he, nay; there is one crown in heaven which the angel Gabriel could not wear, it will fit no head but mine. There is one throne in heaven which Paul the apostle could not fill; it was made for me, and I shall have it. O Christian, what a joyous thought! thy portion is secure; there remaineth a rest. But cannot I forfeit it? No, it is entailed. If I be a child of God I shall not lose it. It is mine as securely as if I were there. Come with me, believer, and let us sit upon the top of Nebo, and view the goodly land, even Canaan. Seest thou that little river of death glistening in the sunlight, and across it dost thou see the pinnacles of the eternal city? Dost thou mark the pleasant country, and all its joyous inhabitants? Know, then, that if thou couldst fly across thou wouldst see written upon one of its many mansions, This remaineth for such a one; preserved for him only. He shall be caught up to dwell forever with God. Poor doubting one, see the fair inheritance; it is thine. If thou believest in the Lord Jesus, if thou hast repented of sin, if thou hast been renewed in heart, thou art one of the Lord’s people, and there is a place reserved for thee, a crown laid up for thee, a harp specially provided for thee. No one else shall have thy portion, it is reserved in heaven for thee, and thou shalt have it ere long, for there shall be no vacant thrones in glory when all the chosen are gathered in.

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..For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.. - Philippians 1:21 John Calvin Commentary For all seek their own things. He does not speak of those who had openly abandoned the pursuit of piety, but of those very persons whom he reckoned brethren, nay, even those whom he admitted to familiar intercourse with him. These persons, he nevertheless says, were so warm in the pursuit of their own interests, that they were unbecomingly col...Continue reading

Piper That You May Believe Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:3031)... I feel so strongly that among those of us who have grown up in church and who can recite the great doctrines of our faith in our sleep, and yet who can yawn through the Apostles’ Creed that among us something must be done to help us once more feel the awe, the fear, the astonishment, the wonder of the Son of God, begotten by the Father from all eternity, reflecting all the glory of God, being the very image of his person, through whom all things were created, upholding the universe by the word of his power. You can read every fairy tale that was ever written, every mystery thriller, every ghost story, and you will never find anything so shocking, so strange, so weird and spellbinding as the story of the incarnation of the Son of God. How dead we are! How callous and unfeeling to your glory and your story, O God! How often have I had to repent and say, God, I am sorry that the stories men have made up stir my emotions, my awe and wonder and admiration and joy, more than your own true story. Perhaps the galactic movie thrillers of our day can do at least this good for us: they can humble us and bring us to repentance, by showing us that we really are capable of some of the wonder and awe and amazement that we so seldom feel when we contemplate the eternal God and the cosmic glory of Christ and a real living contact between them and us in Jesus of Nazareth. When Jesus said, For this purpose I have come into the world (John 18:37), he said something as crazy and weird and strange and eerie as any statement in science fiction that you have ever read. Oh, how I pray for a breaking forth of the Spirit of God upon me and upon you; for the Holy Spirit to break into my experience in a frightening way, to wake me up to the unimaginable reality of God. One of these days lightning is going to fill the sky from the rising of the sun to its setting, and there is going to appear in the clouds the Son of Man with his mighty angels in flaming fire. And we will see him clearly. And whether from terror or sheer excitement, we will tremble and we will wonder how we ever lived so long with such a domesticated, harmless Christ. These things are written the whole Bible is written that we might believe that we might be stunned and awakened to the wonder that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came into the world. From Christmas and the Cause of Truth Would you consider this year-end request from John Piper? Watch

Piper Life and Death at Christmas The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)... As I was about to begin this devotional, I received word that Marion Newstrum had just died. Marion and her husband Elmer had been part of our church longer than most of our members had been alive at the time. She was 87. They had been married 64 years. When I spoke to Elmer and told him I wanted him to be strong in the Lord and not give up on life, he said, He has been a true friend. I pray that all Christians will be able to say at the end of life, Christ has been a true friend. Each Advent I mark the anniversary of my mother’s death. She was cut off in her 56th year in a bus accident in Israel. It was December 16, 1974. Those events are incredibly real to me even today. If I allow myself, I can easily come to tears for example, thinking that my sons never knew her. We buried her the day after Christmas. What a precious Christmas it was! Many of you will feel your loss this Christmas more pointedly than before. Don’t block it out. Let it come. Feel it. What is love for, if not to intensify our affections both in life and death? But oh, do not be bitter. It is tragically self-destructive to be bitter. Jesus came at Christmas that we might have eternal life. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). Elmer and Marion had discussed where they would spend their final years. Elmer said, Marion and I agreed that our final home would be with the Lord. Do you feel restless for home? I have family coming home for the holidays. It feels good. I think the bottom-line reason for why it feels good is that they and I are destined in the depths of our being for an ultimate Homecoming. All other homecomings are foretastes. And foretastes are good. Unless they become substitutes. Oh, don’t let all the sweet things of this season become substitutes of the final, great, all-satisfying Sweetness. Let every loss and every delight send your hearts a-homing after heaven. Christmas. What is it but this: I came that they may have life? Marion Newstrum, Ruth Piper, and you and I that we might have Life, now and forever. Make your Now the richer and deeper this Christmas by drinking at the fountain of Forever. It is so near. From Life and Death at Christmas

SPURGEON Morning, December 15 Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her. Ruth 1:14... Both of them had an affection for Naomi, and therefore set out with her upon her return to the land of Judah. But the hour of test came; Naomi most unselfishly set before each of them the trials which awaited them, and bade them if they cared for ease and comfort to return to their Moabitish friends. At first both of them declared that they would cast in their lot with the Lord’s people; but upon still further consideration Orpah with much grief and a respectful kiss left her mother in law, and her people, and her God, and went back to her idolatrous friends, while Ruth with all her heart gave herself up to the God of her mother in law. It is one thing to love the ways of the Lord when all is fair, and quite another to cleave to them under all discouragements and difficulties. The kiss of outward profession is very cheap and easy, but the practical cleaving to the Lord, which must show itself in holy decision for truth and holiness, is not so small a matter. How stands the case with us, is our heart fixed upon Jesus, is the sacrifice bound with cords to the horns of the altar? Have we counted the cost, and are we solemnly ready to suffer all worldly loss for the Master’s sake? The after gain will be an abundant recompense, for Egypt’s treasures are not to be compared with the glory to be revealed. Orpah is heard of no more; in glorious ease and idolatrous pleasure her life melts into the gloom of death; but Ruth lives in history and in heaven, for grace has placed her in the noble line whence sprung the King of kings. Blessed among women shall those be who for Christ’s sake can renounce all; but forgotten and worse than forgotten shall those be who in the hour of temptation do violence to conscience and turn back unto the world. O that this morning we may not be content with the form of devotion, which may be no better than Orpah’s kiss, but may the Holy Spirit work in us a cleaving of our whole heart to our Lord Jesus.

SPURGEON As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord. Colossians 2:6 The life of faith is represented as receivingan act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living wate...r flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours his salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization, making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive that which is substantial: so is it in the life of faith, Christ becomes real to us. While we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to usa person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that his life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of. The thing which I receive becomes my own: I appropriate to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, he becomes my Saviour, so mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of him. All this is to receive Christto take him as God’s free gift; to realize him in my heart, and to appropriate him as mine. Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received Christ Jesus himself. It is true that he gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; he gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received him, and appropriated him. What a heartful Jesus must be, for heaven itself cannot contain him!

SPURGEON Morning, November 5 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Isaiah 54:17... This day is notable in English history for two great deliverances wrought by God for us. On this day the plot of the Papists to destroy our Houses of Parliament was discovered, 1605. While for our princes they prepare In caverns deep a burning snare, He shot from heaven a piercing ray, And the dark treachery brought to day. And secondlytoday is the anniversary of the landing of King William III, at Torbay, by which the hope of Popish ascendancy was quashed, and religious liberty was secured, 1688. This day ought to be celebrated, not by the saturnalia of striplings, but by the songs of saints. Our Puritan forefathers most devoutly made it a special time of thanksgiving. There is extant a record of the annual sermons preached by Matthew Henry on this day. Our Protestant feeling, and our love of liberty, should make us regard its anniversary with holy gratitude. Let our hearts and lips exclaim, We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which thou didst in their day, and in the old time before them. Thou hast made this nation the home of the gospel; and when the foe has risen against her, thou hast shielded her. Help us to offer repeated songs for repeated deliverances. Grant us more and more a hatred of Antichrist, and hasten on the day of her entire extinction. Till then and ever, we believe the promise, No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Should it not be laid upon the heart of every lover of the gospel of Jesus on this day to plead for the overturning of false doctrines and the extension of divine truth? Would it not be well to search our own hearts, and turn out any of the Popish lumber of self-righteousness which may lie concealed therein?

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SPURGEON Behold, he prayeth. Acts 9:11... Prayers are instantly noticed in heaven. The moment Saul began to pray the Lord heard him. Here is comfort for the distressed but praying soul. Oftentimes a poor broken-hearted one bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of sighs and tears; yet that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has been caught by God and treasured in the lachrymatory of heaven. Thou puttest my tears into thy bottle, implies that they are caught as they flow. The suppliant, whose fears prevent his words, will be well understood by the Most High. He may only look up with misty eye; but prayer is the falling of a tear. Tears are the diamonds of heaven; sighs are a part of the music of Jehovah’s court, and are numbered with the sublimest strains that reach the majesty on high. Think not that your prayer, however weak or trembling, will be unregarded. Jacob’s ladder is lofty, but our prayers shall lean upon the Angel of the covenant and so climb its starry rounds. Our God not only hears prayer but also loves to hear it. He forgetteth not the cry of the humble. True, He regards not high looks and lofty words; He cares not for the pomp and pageantry of kings; He listens not to the swell of martial music; He regards not the triumph and pride of man; but wherever there is a heart big with sorrow, or a lip quivering with agony, or a deep groan, or a penitential sigh, the heart of Jehovah is open; He marks it down in the registry of His memory; He puts our prayers, like rose leaves, between the pages of His book of remembrance, and when the volume is opened at last, there shall be a precious fragrance springing up therefrom. Faith asks no signal from the skies, To show that prayers accepted rise, Our Priest is in His holy place, And answers from the throne of grace.

Piper The Danger of Drifting Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)... We all know people that this has happened to. There is no urgency. No vigilance. No focused listening or considering or fixing of their eyes on Jesus. And the result has not been a standing still, but a drifting away. That is the point here: there is no standing still. The life of this world is not a lake. It is a river. And it is flowing downward to destruction. If you do not listen earnestly to Jesus and consider him daily and fix your eyes on him hourly, then you will not stand still; you will go backward. You will float away from Christ. Drifting is a deadly thing in the Christian life. And the remedy for it, according to Hebrews 2:1, is: Pay close attention to what you have heard. That is, consider what God is saying in his Son Jesus. Fix your eyes on what God is saying and doing in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. This is not a hard swimming stroke to learn. The only thing that keeps us from swimming against sinful culture is not the difficulty of the stroke, but our sinful desire to go with the flow. Let’s not complain that God has given us a hard job. Listen, consider, fix the eyes this is not what you would call a hard job description. In fact, it is not a job description. It is a solemn invitation to be satisfied in Jesus so that we do not get lured downstream by deceitful desires. If you are drifting today, one of the signs of hope that you are born again is that you feel pricked for this, and you feel a rising desire to turn your eyes on Jesus and consider him and listen to him in the days and months and years to come. From The Danger of Drifting from the Word

SPURGEON He began to wash the disciples’ feet.- John 13:5 The Lord Jesus loves his people so much, that every day he is still doing for them much that is analogous to washing their soiled feet. Their poorest actions he accepts; their deepest sorrow he feels; their slenderest wish he hears, and their every transgression he forgives. ... He is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master. He not only performs majestic deeds for them, as wearing the mitre on his brow, and the precious jewels glittering on his breastplate, and standing up to plead for them, but humbly, patiently, he yet goes about among his people with the basin and the towel. He does this when he puts away from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins. Last night, when you bowed the knee, you mournfully confessed that much of your conduct was not worthy of your profession; and even tonight, you must mourn afresh that you have fallen again into the selfsame folly and sin from which special grace delivered you long ago; and yet Jesus will have great patience with you; he will hear your confession of sin; he will say, I will, be thou clean; he will again apply the blood of sprinkling, and speak peace to your conscience, and remove every spot. It is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all absolves the sinner, and puts him into the family of God; but what condescending patience there is when the Saviour with much long-suffering bears the oft recurring follies of his wayward disciple; day by day, and hour by hour, washing away the multiplied transgressions of his erring but yet beloved child! To dry up a flood of rebellion is something marvellous, but to endure the constant dropping of repeated offencesto bear with a perpetual trying of patience, this is divine indeed! While we find comfort and peace in our Lord’s daily cleansing, its legitimate influence upon us will be to increase our watchfulness, and quicken our desire for holiness. Is it so?

Piper Christ Is Like Sunlight He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. (Hebrews 1:3)... Jesus relates to God the way radiance relates to glory, or the way the rays of sunlight relate to the sun. Keep in mind that every analogy between God and natural things is imperfect and will distort if you press it. Nevertheless, consider for example, There is no time that the sun exists without the beams of radiance. They cannot be separated. The radiance is co-eternal with the glory. Christ is co-eternal with God the Father. The radiance is the glory radiating out. It is not essentially different from the glory. Christ is God standing forth as separate but not essentially different from the Father. Thus the radiance is eternally begotten, as it were, by the glory not created or made. If you put a solar-activated calculator in the sunlight, numbers appear on the face of the calculator. These, you could say, are created or made by the sun, but they are not what the sun is. But the rays of the sun are an extension of the sun. So Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, but not made or created. We see the sun by means of seeing the rays of the sun. So we see God the Father by seeing Jesus. The rays of the sun arrive here about eight minutes after they leave the sun, and the round ball of fire that we see in the sky is the image the exact representation of the sun; not because it is a painting of the sun, but because it is the sun streaming forth in its radiance. So I commend this great Person to you that you might trust in him and love him and worship him. He is alive and sitting at the right hand of God with all power and authority and will one day come in great glory. He has that exalted place because he is himself God the Son, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. From He Sat Down at the Right Hand of Majesty

Piper The Mystery of Marriage Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:3132)... Here in Ephesians 5:31 Paul is quoting Genesis 2:24, which Moses spoke and Jesus said God spoke through Moses (Matthew 19:5) A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Paul says this word of God, spoken before the fall into sin, is a reference to Christ and the church and contains therefore a great mystery. What this implies is that when God engaged to create man and woman and to ordain the union of marriage, he didn’t roll the dice or draw straws or flip a coin as to how they might be related to each other. He patterned marriage very purposefully after the relationship between his Son and the church, which he had planned from all eternity. Therefore, marriage is a mystery it contains and conceals a meaning far greater than what we see on the outside. God created man male and female and ordained marriage so that the eternal covenant relationship between Christ and his church would be imaged forth in the marriage union. The inference Paul draws from this mystery is that the roles of husband and wife in marriage are not arbitrarily assigned, but are rooted in the distinctive roles of Christ and his church. Those of us who are married need to ponder again and again how mysterious and wonderful it is that God grants us in marriage the privilege to image forth stupendous divine realities infinitely bigger and greater than ourselves. This mystery of Christ and the church is the foundation of the pattern of love that Paul describes for marriage. It is not enough to say that each spouse should pursue his or her own joy in the joy of the other. That is true. But it is not enough. It is also important to say that husbands and wives should consciously copy the relationship God intended for Christ and the church. That is, each should seek to live after the distinctive model of God’s pure and glad design for Christ and the church. I hope you will take this seriously whether you are single or married, old or young. The revelation of the covenant-keeping Christ and his covenant-keeping church hangs on it. From Desiring God, page 213

Piper Love’s Greatest Happiness No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Ephesians 5:2930)... Don’t miss that last phrase: because we are members of his body. And don’t forget what Paul said two verses earlier, namely, that Christ gave himself for us so that he might present the church to himself in splendor. So in two different ways, Paul makes plain that Christ pursued his joy in pursuing the holiness and beauty and happiness of his people. The union between Christ and his bride is so close (one flesh) that any good done to her is a good done to himself. Which means that the clear assertion of this text is that the Lord is moved to nourish, cherish, sanctify, and cleanse his bride because in this he finds his joy. By some definitions, this cannot be love. Love, they say, must be free of self-interest especially Christlike love, especially Calvary love. I have never seen such a view of love made to square with this passage of Scripture. Yet what Christ does for his bride, this text plainly calls love: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church . . . (Ephesians 5:25). Why not let the text define love for us, instead of bringing our definition from ethics or philosophy? According to this text, love is the pursuit of Christ’s joy in the holy joy of the beloved. There is no way to exclude self-interest from love, for self-interest is not the same as selfishness. Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Christlike love seeks its happiness in the happiness of others not at their expense. It will even suffer and die for the beloved in order that its joy might be made full in the life and purity of the beloved. This is how Christ loved us, and this is how he calls us to love one another. From Desiring God, pages 206207

Piper The Purpose of Prosperity Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. (Ephesians 4:28)... There are three levels of how to live with material things: (1) you can steal to get them; (2) or you can work to get them; (3) or you can work to get in order to give. Too many professing Christians live on level two. We glorify work over against stealing and mooching, and feel we have acted virtuously if we have spurned stealing and mooching, and given ourselves to an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. That’s not a bad thing. Work is better than stealing and mooching. But that’s not what the apostle calls us to. Almost all the forces of our culture urge us to live on level two: work to get. But the Bible pushes us relentlessly to level three: work to get to give. God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). Why does God bless us with abundance? So we can have enough to live on, and then use the rest for all manner of good works that alleviate spiritual and physical misery temporal and eternal suffering. Enough for us; abundance for others. The issue is not how much a person makes. Big industry and big salaries are a fact of our times, and they are not necessarily evil. The evil is in being deceived into thinking that a large salary must be accompanied by a lavish lifestyle. God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn’t. Copper will do. Copper can carry unbelievable riches to others. And in the very process of that giving we enjoy the greatest blessing (Acts 20:35). From Desiring God, pages 202203

Piper We Can Do Nothing I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)... Suppose you are totally paralyzed and can do nothing for yourself but talk. And suppose a strong and reliable friend promised to live with you and do whatever you needed done. How could you glorify this friend if a stranger came to see you? Would you glorify his generosity and strength by trying to get out of bed and carry him? No! You would say, Friend, please come lift me up, and would you put a pillow behind me so I can look at my guest? And would you please put my glasses on for me? And so your visitor would learn from your requests that you are helpless and that your friend is strong and kind. You glorify your friend by needing him, and by asking him for help, and counting on him. In John 15:5, Jesus says, Apart from me you can do nothing. So we really are paralyzed. Without Christ, we are capable of no Christ-exalting good. As Paul says in Romans 7:18, Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. But John 15:5 also says that God does intend for us to do much Christ-exalting good, namely bear fruit: Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. So as our strong and reliable friend I have called you friends (John 15:15) he promises to do for us, and through us, what we can’t do for ourselves. How then do we glorify him? Jesus gives the answer in John 15:7: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. We pray! We ask God to do for us through Christ what we can’t do for ourselves bear fruit. John 15:8 gives the result: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. So how is God glorified by prayer? Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that he will provide the help we need. From Desiring God, pages 160161

Piper The Happy God Sound doctrine [is] in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed [that is, happy] God. (1 Timothy 1:1011)... A great part of God’s glory is his happiness. It was inconceivable to the apostle Paul that God could be denied infinite joy and still be all-glorious. To be infinitely glorious was to be infinitely happy. He used the phrase, the glory of the happy God, because it is a glorious thing for God to be as happy as he is infinitely happy. God’s glory consists much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination. This is the gospel: the gospel of the glory of the happy God. That’s a quote from the Bible! It is good news that God is gloriously happy. No one would want to spend eternity with an unhappy God. If God is unhappy, then the goal of the gospel is not a happy goal, and that means it would be no gospel at all. But, in fact, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says, Enter into the joy of your master (Matthew 25:23). Jesus lived and died that his joy God’s joy might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15:11; 17:13). Therefore, the gospel is the gospel of the glory of the happy God. The happiness of God is first and foremost a happiness in his Son. Thus when we share in the happiness of God, we share in the very pleasure that the Father has in the Son. This is why Jesus made the Father known to us. At the end of his great prayer in John 17, he said to his Father, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:26). He made God known so that God’s pleasure in his Son might be in us and become our pleasure in him. From The Pleasures of God, pages 2627

Piper Absolute, Sovereign, Almighty Love The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Exodus 34:6)... God abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. Two images come to my mind: The heart of God is like an inexhaustible spring of water that bubbles up love and faithfulness at the top of the mountain. Century after century the spring keeps on flowing. Or the heart of God is like a volcano that burns so hot with love that it blasts the top off the mountain and flows year after year with the lava of love and faithfulness. When God uses the word abounding abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness he wants us to understand and feel that the resources of his love are not limited. You can drink at this mountain spring all day, year after year, generation after generation, and it never runs dry. You might even risk saying that God is like a government that simply prints more money when there’s a need. Inexhaustible, right? Well, there’s a difference. God has an infinite treasury of golden love to cover all the currency he prints. The government is in a dream world. God banks very realistically on the infinite resources of his deity. The absolute existence, the sovereign freedom, and the omnipotence of God are the volcanic fullness that explodes in an overflow of love. The sheer magnificence of God means that he does not need us to fill up any deficiency in himself. Instead his infinite self-sufficiency spills over in love to us to sinners who need him, and the gift of himself in Jesus. We can bank on his love precisely because we believe in the absoluteness of his existence, the sovereignty of his freedom, and the limitlessness of his power. From The Lord, a God Merciful and Gracious

Very good article. We’ve been noticing this trend. To me, leaving your church during a pandemic is like that old 70’s love song... ..You left me, just when I needed you most..