Video from desiringgod.org
Delight over Distraction: A Conversation with John Piper
Audio Transcript
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It’s good to be back with you. And it’s a privilege to be back with you, Pastor John.
Pastor John, a few years ago we were able to have one conversation, and, by God’s grace, we had a second, and now this is our third. So thank you for being here. Thank you for your commitment to Cross Conference. We’re so grateful for you.
It’s a dream come true.
Our Need for Focus
The guys who organized this conference said that they had a whole series planned for this conference around 1 Peter, and when they talked to you, you said, “That’s not the thing we need to do.” You love the Bible, but you wanted it to be a different theme. You chose the theme “Focus.” Why did you want the theme “Focus” for this year? Is that a new thing for our generation only, or is that something other Christians have struggled with also?
I don’t remember it just like that, but we’ll go with that. I think what I was struck with is two conceptions of the problem with lack of focus. One problem is that what you’re focused on is wrong, and the other problem is that you don’t focus — your eyes are blurry. In my mind, focus is intentional, concentrated attention. So, I have an attention possibility in my head, I grasp it, and I direct it intentionally toward something, toward an end. And I don’t think a lot of people do that. I think that’s work. It’s called thinking.
We are, in one sense, a hyper-focused culture with the screens. You look at your screen and somebody’s talking, and you don’t even know they’re talking because you’re so focused. Well, that’s not what I mean. That’s passive focus. You’re not intentionally riveting your attention with a view to going somewhere or accomplishing something. That was one piece of it. I want there to be a generation of people who live their lives intentionally. They know something about God, they know something about the world, and they intentionally rivet their attention on it and make their lives count for that, because otherwise you’re just a jellyfish floating in the water instead of a dolphin.
I preached a sermon one time about that. I have to tell this story, because I used the jellyfish illustration and I said, “You don’t want to be a jellyfish, do you? Who wants to be a jellyfish?” And this little girl in the second row said, “I do.” I said, “No, you don’t. Ask your mommy why. You don’t.” And I just think there are a lot of you who are jellyfish. You’re just drifting. Whatever comes next, you just enjoy it, instead of saying, “No, I’m going to rivet my life’s attention and focus on something infinitely valuable and go for it with all my mind.” That’s the nobody focuses part.
The other part is that what the world thinks is worthy of your focus doesn’t compare to what they don’t think is worthy of your focus. Just check your news feeds, or if you still look at newspapers. I used to marvel that the Minneapolis Star Tribune (it was the main paper in the Twin Cities) — it had an entire section called “Variety,” an entire section called “Business,” and an entire section called “Sport.” There was a whole section called “Sport,” and there was not one single section on God. There was no section on missions and no section on church. The world is focused on the things that they think are important. Right now, they’re feeding you New Orleans. They’re feeding you the coming inauguration. They’re feeding you the war in Gaza. They’re feeding you the war in Ukraine. They’re feeding you the bomb blowing up in front of the Trump Tower. They’re feeding all of this, and you think, What’s the next thing to see? And I’m saying, “Excuse me? That’s not the main thing that’s happening today.”
The main thing that’s happening today is that there are about forty thousand people laying down their lives for Jesus, telling the gospel in places where he’s not yet known. And that’s the focus. So, I didn’t mean to preempt 1 Peter. That’s not good. I think 1 Peter could be really good for focus, and every year is a focus year.
Distracted and Divided
Amen. The theme of our conversation right now is how the glory of Jesus — the one we just heard John talk about — dims out our distractions. Because you, maybe more than any other generation — though distractions have been around for a long time — are inundated with distractions, just like John said. You’re inundated with your TikTok reel or your Instagram reel. What we want you to see today is that when you see Jesus rightly, you’ll see the world clearly.
So with that, Pastor John, I imagine that there are many — hundreds, if not thousands — in this room tonight who would say they’ve trusted in Christ, that they believe that you’re only saved by trusting in his finished work. But when they evaluate their own life, their affections, as you often talk about — they seem often divided and dull for Christ, even as they consider what Christ offers and what the world offers. What the world offers seems just as compelling as to what Christ offers. What would you say to those here who are trusting in Christ, but their affections seem divided? They’re having a hard time seeing Jesus for who he actually is.
Divided affections are dealt with exactly in Psalm 86:11: “Unite my heart to fear your name.” I pray that every morning. I have this prayer that I pray, and the acronym is I-O-U-S. I stands for “Incline my heart to your testimonies” (Psalm 119:36). O is for “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). U is “Unite my heart to fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). And then S is “Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love” (Psalm 90:14).
You’ve asked me to talk about affections going after the world and going after Jesus. I think it would make a huge difference if all of you had a deeply grounded theology of the affections. The word affections is an eighteenth-century word for emotions. We think emotions are frivolous and like ripples on the sea, where affections are deeper. What I mean by spiritual affections are the kinds of feelings that are prompted by the Holy Spirit. That’s why they’re spiritual. And what I mean by “a well-grounded theology of the affections” — or a theology of joy in particular — is that you may not be persuaded that it’s right to pursue red-hot affections.
When I was in college, I was very conflicted about this because I heard so many speakers say, “You have to do God’s will, not your will.” And I thought, That means a life of perpetual frustration. My will is always canceled. My happiness is always canceled. I need self-denial of my joy. That was always preeminent. Therefore, I thought I needed to live a life of unending frustration while I did God’s will. It really did feel that way. Maybe we’ve come a long way since then; I don’t know. But for me at that time — and perhaps for some of you — I didn’t have a theology of joy, suffering, and the affections that enabled me to say, “Not only are you permitted to pursue maximum joy (namely, joy in God), but you are required to.” That’s what jolted me. Maybe it will jolt some of you. You are required to pursue joy in God. It’s not just a permission; it’s a demand. “Delight yourself in the Lord” is a demand (Psalm 37:4). And I’ve spent most of my last fifty years trying to discern the role of joy and the affections in the Christian life, the Christian motivational structure.
The ultimate reason I’ve hit upon is that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. Now, if you could be persuaded of that, that you cannot glorify God as you ought until Jesus becomes your most satisfying treasure, then you wouldn’t think joy in God was icing on the cake. It’s the cake. Saving faith has in it a treasuring of Jesus that’s palpable. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). So, believing is coming to Jesus to be satisfied in him, the bread of life. If you’re not satisfied in Jesus, you have a crisis of faith.
Developing that theology of joy, I think, would set students on the kind of quest for joy that might succeed. Because my guess is that the language of affection and the language of the beauty, excellence, and satisfying nature of Jesus is coming out a lot, and it will continue. But my guess is that a lot of you say, “Well, that would be nice, but that’s not my personality. I don’t even think of those categories. I do not talk about delighting in Jesus. I don’t talk about being satisfied in Jesus. I talk about devotion to Jesus, obedience to Jesus, and believing Jesus. I don’t have any of that affection language.” I would say you’re in real danger. You’re in real danger if you ignore the biblical commands to delight in the Lord above all things. I’ll stop here, but then you have to talk about suffering. But we’ll see if that comes out later.
Delighting in the Real Jesus
It’s one thing to say, “Delight in Jesus,” but could we just break it down at the most simple level? What is so wonderful about Jesus that delighting in him is not a burden, but it’s a joy?
Well, you just heard the answer to that in that last message, and I wanted to take hold of John and say, “We saw him, we saw him,” but let me see if I can be more personal. He has to be true, first of all. I mean, you might be sitting there thinking, Everything he said was wonderful. It’s just not true. You think that Jesus isn’t who he said he is. I know people like that. They can talk about all the excellencies of Jesus, all the glories of Jesus, all the power and wisdom and beauty of Jesus. And they say, “This is not true. It’s just a myth. It’s just made up.” And so, the first thing to say about how he becomes your delight is that he becomes real.
I mean, could you give an account right now for why you believe he’s true? Number one, he existed. Could you give an account for that? He was the Son of God. He lived a sinless life. He died on the cross. His purpose was to save sinners. He rose from the dead. He reigns today. He’s coming again. What if somebody said, “Nice — just not true”? And so, we have to come to terms with the truth. I’ll just give you where I would go in answer to that question. And it’s developed over the years.
I’ve read the Bible fifty times maybe, but the apostle Paul’s thirteen letters have become my friends — so much so that I love the apostle Paul. I love him. I have a Rembrandt picture of him. Nobody knows what Paul looked like, but I have a picture in my exercise room in the attic, along with Jonathan Edwards, my dad, and Dan Fuller. I turn off my audiobook before I run in the morning, and I look at these four men, and I look at Paul, who started it all for those, and I say, “I love you. I love you. I thank you for suffering like you did.” Now, you would think, “That’s the way you would talk to Jesus. You talk to Jesus that way.” Absolutely I do, but here’s the catch: I have a PhD in critical New Testament studies, which is just deadly to your faith, right? I got it in Germany. It’s deadly.
I know what the critics say about the inauthenticity of the Gospels. One of the teachers I was studying under said there are about six sayings of Jesus that may go back to Jesus in the Gospels. That’s just deadly. But they will admit that there are at least six of Paul’s letters that are authentic. Nobody in the world who’s had any critical skills at all would doubt that Paul wrote six of these thirteen letters. Take away everything else. Just give me those six letters. And I have lived with him in those letters to the point where I cannot call him a fool. I cannot call him deceived. I cannot call him an egomaniac. I would face any skeptic anywhere in the world who is telling me why this, this, and this cannot be true about Jesus, and I would say, “Okay, I have your word, and I have Paul’s word. He has won my trust. I don’t even know who you are.” I might say, “You don’t think clearly,” or “You have an axe to grind.”
What I’m commending to you is that you need to immerse yourself in the Bible — especially in the Gospels with regard to Jesus and the Epistles with regard to Paul, and see whether or not he’s credible to you as a testimony. All we can know about the past is what is testified. I have given Paul my credit.
Now, once I do that, the things he says explode, because we’re talking reality. I mean, the things he says are so off-the-charts amazing. I’ll just give you one example. When they were boasting in Corinth, he said,
Let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23)
If you’re a child of God, you inherit the universe. I’m saying that, if you slow down, if you’re convinced it’s true, if you savor the specifics of Scripture, they will move you. And if they don’t, you need to be on your face in repentance, praying, “O God, open my eyes; awaken my heart; move me. Don’t let me be dead like a log.” (I just finished reading the new translation of Calvin’s On the Christian Life. Several times he talks about people being logs.)
That was a long answer to what’s so great about Jesus. The answer is, “He’s true.” And once you get that settled — deeply settled, so you could die for it without batting an eye — then the particulars that come from it are staggeringly glorious.
Amen.
They demand poetry. They demand songs. I say that because I had a lot of leisure time over the holidays, and I wrote a fifteen-stanza poem. I thought it was going to be a song, but nobody sings fifteen-stanza songs. We might sing it at Desiring God just for fun. But it was on the question, What is serious joy? I wrote that poem, and I’ve written poems all my life because he’s better than mere prose can communicate.
Amen. As you’re saying that, I’m reminded that I was preaching through Mark last year, and the leper comes to Jesus. I assume he was having to yell, “Unclean, unclean,” as he runs to Jesus. He’s probably not been near people or touched in maybe all his life. And he says to Jesus, “If you will, you can make me clean.” He’s thinking, “I know you’re able, but I’m not sure you will.” And Jesus reaches out and touches him and says, “I will.” I thought, “Who is this man who does that?” It’s only the God-man. That’s so glorious and so sweet.
When you hear about floods and tsunamis and hurricanes, you should have ringing in your ear, “The wind and the waves obey him.” Really, you just have to come to terms with that. Either he is in charge of the wind and the hurricanes and what happened in Asheville and across the south, or it’s a fake. They said about him, “Even the wind and waves obey you,” which means he can stop any wind he wants, any flood he wants, or any plane crash he wants. He can stop any catastrophe, and that just makes things totally real. I have to either stop worshiping this man, or I have to bow before that majesty.
By Grace We Are What We Are
Amen. So, one of the things that we all struggle with is comparison. And when you’re in your twenties, it is very dominant in your mind. How does seeing Jesus the way you just talked about help us put comparison to death?
First Corinthians 15:10 says,
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
It didn’t land on me until recently when he said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Now, grace is good. God’s grace is not, “Oh, I missed it,” or “Your harm is really what I’m after.” That’s not grace. And Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Now, either you’re going to be okay with that or reject him. You might say, “He’s not gracious, he’s not powerful, and he’s not wise.” You might say he’s not gracious because you don’t like how tall you are or how your fatty tissue is proportioned in your body, or how your hair is, or how your complexion is, or how your personality is, or how your disability is.
Oh my goodness, I’m so glad that we have Joni Eareckson Tada writing a book like The Practice of the Presence of Jesus, which my wife and I read out loud to each other last year. I’m giving it to people right and left. I’m going to require it as a textbook for my class on 2 Corinthians because Joni, as you know, has been in a wheelchair for about 53 years, and she’s singing like nobody sings. That is crucial. We need more witnesses like that to God’s sovereignty in controlling what happens to us. She could be very bitter and say, “I don’t like the way I am. I don’t want to be in this chair.” She’s very honest. She said, “The first thing I’m going to do when I get to heaven is bow before Jesus and then throw this chair into hell.” And that’s a very good way to say it. But she’s not accusing Jesus as being hellish while she’s in that chair.
I don’t know what you’re dealing with that makes you not like the way God made you. I mean, I have been frustrated all my life that I can’t read quicker. I can’t read any faster than I can talk. I struggled like crazy to get this education that I got. I’ll just never be a great scholar. I won’t. I won’t be like Kevin DeYoung. He’s going to talk to you on Saturday. That guy reads everything. He remembers what he reads, and he says smart things about what he reads. I just look at that and say, “I might read a book a month — maybe.”
Just know that when I was a little younger than most of you, I could not speak in front of a group. I was paralyzed. In the ninth grade, the teacher required that we read one paragraph in front of the whole class to describe our project. As we were coming down the road to me, I looked down, and I could see my shirt moving up and down because my heart was beating so hard. I got up, I went to the bathroom, and I cried my eyes out. That’s the ninth grade. I could not speak in front of a group. I hated it. Now, I didn’t know what God was doing. It didn’t make sense to me at all. Then there was also my slow reading, and I had acne. I hated acne. I hated pimples. I thought, Nobody can like me. I had these zits all over my face. (It’s hard to be a teenager. I’ll tell you; it is.) From my perspective now, I think I sinned a lot in responding that way to my disability. God had plans to do something that I don’t think anybody can quite estimate.
So, by the grace of God, you are who you are. That’s the first answer to the question “What do you do when people scorn you, disapprove of you? What do you do when you don’t measure up to them, and you don’t measure up to yourself?”
The other thing I would say is that being so gloriously satisfied to know Jesus and to know his approval caused Peter and the other apostles to come out from being beaten and shamed rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to be shamed for the sake of the name (Acts 5:41). You have a great Jesus when you can have a whole crowd of people mock you, and you walk out rejoicing. That’s the miracle we want to happen in this conference. You are so satisfied in his identity of you, his friendship with you, his acceptance of you, his purpose for your life, that these other people don’t count like that counts.
This is true confession. I’m 78 years old. I’ll turn 79 in a few days. That means I’m entering my eightieth year, which means I’m entering my ninth decade. That’s old. I was in a group thinking, I have my identity nailed down. John Piper knows who he is. I’m okay with that. I know what I can’t do, and I know what I can do. I was playing a game, and one of the pieces of the game was that everybody needed to think of a suit from the card. We went around to see how many had the same one. I didn’t know what they were. I’ve never played a game of cards in my life. Can you believe that? I mean, I’m so totally fundie and out of it.
“You cannot overestimate the importance of the Bible in your life.”
I said, “I think there’s a king in the deck?” I said, “King,” and they laughed at me, and I felt that old sting. I really did. I felt, Everybody thinks you’re an idiot. “You have pimples.” “You can’t talk.” “You’re one of those crazy Christians.” This is a dangerous thing. That doesn’t happen very often to me, but I felt the sting, and I kind of laughed and rolled with it. We are sinners to the end, in need of grace.
Kept by God Alone
Yes, if the sovereign God sent his Son to die for you, it doesn’t ultimately matter what anybody says about you.
Considering what we heard earlier today with Garrett’s message, I imagine that, over the last sixty years of your life, you’ve probably seen a lot of people who would say nothing is more satisfying than Jesus. But then you’ve seen some of those same people live out what Jesus warned about in Mark 4 — that when the pressure came, when the pleasure was offered, when the persecution was there, they were willing to desert Jesus. What’s kept you from being one of those who fell away? What habits have you cultivated in your life to continue to see and savor Jesus for all of your days?
Well, those are not the same — what has kept me and what are the habits. So, let’s deal with them one at a time.
What has kept me is God. When I stepped down from the senior-pastor position at Bethlehem thirteen years ago, Together for the Gospel was a big conference — like this, here in this town — and I was up to speak at that. First time speaking as a non-pastor after 33 years, and that’s what I spoke about: he kept me. Jude says,
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24–25)
That’s probably one of the greatest doxologies or benedictions in the Bible. And what’s it all been in praise of? He keeps us. There’s only one hope for you, and it isn’t the habits that you’re going to develop. It’s that God’s grace will hold on to you. Which means that the first habit is to pray, “Do that.” I’ve probably prayed that prayer as often as any prayer: “Keep me. Keep me.” I have a little prayer bench at home. I go to my prayer bench that I have. I’ve spent a lot of time there, and a lot of it has been just desperate, praying, “Keep me.” Maybe marriage was on the rocks, and it felt awful. Noël and I could hardly talk to each other. I would pray, “Please hold on to me. Hold on to her.” Or it could be, “The church is about to split, and 230 people have just left. Please, please hold on to me.” I just think that’s what you do. If you find yourself getting close to walking away from Jesus, just go flat and pray, “Hold on to me. I can’t do it. I can’t hold on to you. Hold on to me.” That’s number one.
And number two is to listen to him. That’s been said, and it will be said. You cannot overestimate the importance of the Bible in your life. You really cannot. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). That’s not just about conversion. It’s about tomorrow morning and staying a believer. I ask people everywhere I go, “What makes you think you’re going to be a Christian tomorrow morning — that you’re going to be a believer when you wake up in the hotel room? What makes you think you’re going to be a believer? Why wouldn’t your faith just be gone when you wake up tomorrow morning? Why won’t you just be in love with the world like Demas and go away from Jesus? Why wouldn’t that happen?” If you say, “Well, I’m smart,” or something else, you’re wrong. There’s only one answer: he keeps you, and he uses means, and prayer and the word are the primary means.
Somebody mentioned you should read biographies. That’s true. Isn’t it amazing that God didn’t just give the church a Bible and say, “Now, you have your Bible, and you have the Holy Spirit. You don’t need teachers.” Wouldn’t that magnify the worth of the Bible? Wouldn’t that magnify the power of the Holy Spirit? You don’t need Ben Lacey as a pastor. You don’t need Pastor John to write books. You don’t need human teachers. You have the Bible, and you have the Holy Spirit. Just go off and get your theology. But the New Testament says every church should have elders, and elders should be apt to teach. And all of you, if you’re not an elder, should be under elders and they’re teaching you.
Here’s maybe one more thing in that regard. Where does that intersect? This is another answer to, how did Piper stay in love with Jesus? And the answer is this: corporate worship under the word of God. I feel bad for those of you who are in churches where you are not hearing solid, good, rich biblical exposition of glorious truth. I hope that changes for you sooner or later. But I’ve been in churches where I’ve heard that and I’ve led that, and I can tell you, my marriage was saved more than once by corporate worship.
Here’s the way it works. I can remember sitting before I went into the pulpit to preach. I would be on the front pew. We would be singing a song, and somebody was going to read Scripture, and Noël and I weren’t talking to each other. She or I said something ugly last night. One of the kids stayed out too late. We were just seeing things opposite, and it’s awful emotionally. I’m angry at her, at the kids, and I have to preach in three minutes.
The kind of songs we sang were like ones here: “How Great Thou Art,” “In Christ Alone,” “To Christ Be the Glory.” In those moments, I would be standing there and have Tom Steller, my associate, next to me with his eyes closed with his hands in the air. And I was stewing about my marriage. I would look at Tom, look at the others, and see people enjoying God in worship, and I would be broken. I would think, What’s wrong with you, Piper? This marriage is worth billions of dollars. She’s precious to you. Why are you so out of proportion with your emotions right now? And the corporate-ness of the worship rescued me.
That’s the word in corporate worship. Being in a good church would be a wonderful way to be kept by the sovereignty of God.
Amen. If you leave here and get in the word and get in a church who gets in the word, that’s a good thing to remember for the rest of your life.
It is.
Convictions Behind a Dream
You were a part of a group twelve years ago that dreamed up Cross Conference. Why did y’all dream this up? And what are some things that you want to say to this generation in light of that conversation you had twelve years ago?
I won’t be able to remember all of them, but I’ll make a stab at some of them. There were dimensions of God and dimensions of the world that we felt were not being captured as fully, deeply, richly, and globally as we thought they should be. We were all Calvinists (and we still are), meaning we love the sovereignty of God, and we believe God saves us decisively, not we ourselves. And so that was right at the heart. Big-God theology would be another word for it. We wanted a conference that had big-God theology. When you come to this conference, you’re going to get a big, sovereign, glorious God. That was a big piece of it.
Secondly, we were driven by the lostness of the world. We looked around at conferences, and it looked as though the shift was from seeking to rescue sinners by the gospel to seeking to make life better in this world with the gospel. Now, you might wonder, Well, is that wrong? Here’s the little saying that I’ve used, and I think we share it as a conference: Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.
Now, the reason that statement is valuable is because it makes conservatives and liberals nervous. Everybody gets nervous. Liberals get nervous because you say “especially eternal suffering,” and they don’t even believe in hell. And that’s what is especially important: rescuing people from eternal suffering. And conservatives get nervous because you said you care about all suffering — like all the wars, all the poverty, all the homelessness, and all the fentanyl addiction, suicides, and overdoses. And we expect that in our churches. People are going to have a burden for all those things.
I hope you hear those two things at this conference. We care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. If you can’t say both of those, something’s wrong with your heart or your theology — really wrong. We really believe in hell. We really believe in hell as a horrible, horrible future. My wife and I just watched a documentary about Dante, who wrote Inferno. His description of the nine levels of hell and who’s there is of course imaginary, but it was shocking. We believe in hell.
We believe that people’s languages all over the world are to be focused on by the church till the church is planted there. In other words, we’re not just about saving individuals, but we care about the fact that God has so governed the world that there are several thousand languages that don’t have churches among them so that the gospel can’t flow in a natural way across the language because nobody has gone there, learned the culture, learned the language, and planted the church. That’s a huge thing for us. Reach the peoples. Reach the languages.
Another one is the church. We’ve stressed it here. I’m going to preach the last message here on Saturday, and I’m going to call for some of you to stand up. And one of the ways it’s going to go is that we at this conference don’t just want you to say, “I have a vision for missions, so here I go. Where’s the agency I can go with?” No, it’s going to be, “Where’s the church I can belong to, plug in to, grow in, and be sent by?” And if you don’t have one of those, part of this conference is aimed to motivate you in that direction. We have a local-church orientation towards missions.
And maybe one more thing would be contextualization. Contextualization means this: we looked around the world thirteen years ago, and we saw drifts in missions that basically accommodated so much of the local culture that you couldn’t recognize Christianity anymore. So, you win a Muslim to Christ and tell them to stay in the mosque, tell them to read the Quran, and tell them to speak to the prophet but to also add Jesus. That’s not a good way to view contextualization. I mean, contextualization is real. Paul said, “I become all things to all people that I might win some” (see 1 Corinthians 9:22). You can’t talk to somebody if they don’t know the language that you’re speaking.
So, we saw a whole cluster of issues in theology and missions that needed addressing. And when I said a minute ago that this is a dream come true, you’re it. I mean, we sat in a hotel room in Minneapolis thirteen years ago, and it never entered my mind, I don’t think, that I would be looking out on fifteen students at the Cross Conference. So, I’m amazed what God is up to in these days.
Take a Risk
Amen. Here are two more questions in light of that. You talk often about risk. You say that in the gospel and with the Great Commission, risk is right. There may be many people here tonight who think, “Jesus is glorious.” They do want to answer the call to the Great Commission and go to the ends of the earth, but they’re calculating the risk because there is a cost to it. There is a cost of comfort, convenience, money, disappointing family and friends, and dreams of a life in the States potentially. What would you say to those who are calculating the risk and why is risk right?
Well, Jesus said, “Count the cost” (Luke 14:28). So that’s not anybody’s imagination; that’s just Jesus. When you try to lead someone to Jesus, don’t make it sound easy. It isn’t. And you shouldn’t do bait and switch in your evangelism.
I think the first thing to say is to get the meaning of risk clear. God not only does not take any risks, but he also cannot take any risks. I was at a mission conference one time where the whole message was built around the idea that God risked creation, and it went bad. God risked sending his Son into the world, and he got killed. I just thought, This is absolute heresy — because the meaning of risk is that you don’t know what the danger is. If you know what the danger is that you’re walking into, you call it sacrifice, not risk. Risk is when you step into a situation or move toward a goal and you don’t know how bad it may go. It may go very bad, or it may not, and that’s the risk.
So, God can’t risk, and the reason that’s so important is because the fact that God can’t risk but knows everything and rules everything means you can:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:35–37)
In the end, the reason you take risks is because they aren’t a very big risk. I used to say that to folks in my church because I’d invite them to come and live in the neighborhood, which was called Murder-apolis, and I would say, “Fear not: you can only be killed,” because that’s exactly what Jesus said. He says,
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matthew 10:28–30)
Come on; lay it down. Take a risk..." from the Transcript
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