Before going on with my main point today, I wanted to point out an interesting and seemingly contradictory opinion by John Piper. In his sermon, The Guilt of Giving Part of God's Council, Piper says that it is possible to be held responsible for someone else's final lostness, if we withhold speaking the gospel as prompted by the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure how that reconciles with the whole predestination thing.
Moving on (now that I've re-opened that can of worms!).....
This scripture jumped out at me....
And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. Acts 20:22-24
What an amazing and challenging portion of scripture that is!
Despite the Holy Spirit warning him of (and preparing him for) the hardships that were to come, Paul was faithful to the task he had been given and declared that any consequence was worth it!
And Paul wasn't acting out of naivety. He had already endured plenty of hardships by this point - beatings, stoning, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and more (2 Corinthians 11:24-29). No, he was not speaking and acting out of naivety. He knew what it meant to count the cost.
But having counted the cost, having weighed the pros and cons, he determined that faithfulness was better than life.
In his sermon Faithfulness is Better than Life, John Piper says....
believing that faithfulness is better than life means being bound by the Spirit to the will of God. Your spirit is gripped. God's Spirit has a hold of you. And so the will of God is your passion.... Faithfulness is better than life means that you are content not to know in detail what tomorrow will bring.....Success in human ventures is not the measure of God on your life. What God requires of you tomorrow is that you be faithful to him and let the chips fall where he wills...
If you can honestly say with Paul that "faithfulness is better than life," it will mean not only that you can be content with ignorance about tomorrow; but you can also be content with the assurance that tomorrow is going to hurt. This is remarkable! Someone might counsel us to put out of our mind the high cost of following Jesus. But the Holy Spirit tells Paul in every city that bonds and afflictions await him.
Why does Paul tell these Ephesian elders this? To teach them that it doesn't matter. He's going forward anyway... The question is not whether there will be hardship and pain and trouble and affliction: there will be! Paul said to all the churches in Acts 14:22, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom." (Also see 2 Timothy 3:12) The question is whether we believe that faithfulness is better than life...
What does it mean that faithfulness is better than life? is this: it means set your face like flint against the American dream.
Verse 22: "And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem." No matter what the cost! No matter what the impact on my safety and my standard of living. (emphasis mine)
And why is faithfulness better than life?
because faithfulness means finishing the race and the one who finishes the race will get the crown....
faithfulness is better than life because beyond this short life there is a great life of joy that stretches out forever into eternity. And those who are faithful here will enter that life and get a crown of righteousness....'
Because faithfulness means finishing the race, and finishing the race means unimaginable joy forever and ever and ever.....
Paul sums up the content of his life's work with these two phrases. First: "testifying to the gospel of the grace of God"; and second, "preaching the kingdom." He lived to make known God's grace and God's kingdom.
So here's the answer to our question: the foundation of his life and his hope was that God is gracious and that God is King. And that's the basis of our confidence that faithfulness is better than life: if God is King, then he can reward the faithful, and nothing can stop him in his kingly power. If God is gracious, then he will reward the faithful.
Tomorrow's passage: Acts 21:37-23:35
3 comments:
I think our lives are too easy and too comfortable for us to really be able to truthfully say we desire faithfulness more than life. I don't think we can fathom valuing eternity to come over our lives here and now. That isn't to say would shouldn't make that a goal, of course, but I think this is one of the main reasons the church grows much faster and stronger when under persecution and/or in poorer countries.
As to the OTHER matter, ahem... ;)
Quite honestly, I don't like Piper on the subject of predestination vs. free will. It grates on me a little bit that he claims to have it all figured out and yet still makes statements that are contradictory. If he hadn't said it all makes perfect sense, it probably wouldn't bother me quite so much!! But when you say something like that, you have to be able to prove it makes perfect sense, and I think his explanations fall a little short, in my relatively uneducated opinion.
We cannot escape the reality that the doctrine of election is taught all through the New Testament, and certainly the Old. We also cannot escape the reality that the doctrine of human responsibility is also taught. The conclusion I have reached is that while they appear to be opposing doctrines to us, they cannot be so to God otherwise one of them would not appear in the Canon of Scripture. In a way we simply can't comprehend, they must work together. And I'm content to accept that. There are plenty of other teachings in the Bible I don't fully grasp and that don't make sense ~ like creation, atonement, propitiation, the trinity, eternal life ~ but I accept and place a great amount of faith in them. So I choose to do that in this situation as well.
And I tell ya, it's very freeing to no longer have to shy away from those pesky predestination/election passages!!
I would highly recommend listening to this 4-part series by MacArthur that I found extremely helpful:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
(Part 3 & 4 in parcticular, if you don't have time for all of them. And again, I found listening much more helpful than reading.)
It's very true that we are not physically persecuted for our faith.
And yet, how often are we not willing to be faithful for far lesser reasons? Not wanting to sacrifice the American dream. Fear of being laughed at. Fear of what people might think. Fear that if we commit to God's will for our lives He might send us to Africa. etc, etc.
I agree with your thoughts on election and human responsibility. I'll have to take a look at the MacArthur links you gave - thanks!
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