The Evangelical Alliance released this announcement last week:

"The retiring General Director of the Evangelical Alliance will bring his passion for justice for the poor to two new roles as he joins Tony Blair's Faith Foundation and becomes the first International Director of Micah Challenge . . ."

Mr Edwards, a British immigrant from Jamaica, is an honorary Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral. He was a probation officer for fourteen years, and the senior pastor of Mile End New Testament Church of God for ten years.

The announcement continues . . .

He has been appointed as a member of the International Religious Advisory Council to the Faith Foundation, which will give advice and help to Tony Blair on the Foundation’s work and plans.

Mr Edwards said:

“I am honoured to be part of this Foundation, which aims to demonstrate the power faith has for good in the modern world."

Mr Edwards has been closely involved with Micah Challenge International—a Christian campaign challenging governments around the world to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015—since its inception in 2000.

“I am really looking forward to getting stuck in and leading this global coalition into an exciting phase of mobilising and campaigning towards 2015 . . ."

Read the entire story . . .

These are notes from the sermon I preached at Jubilee last Sunday. They are shorter than usual, but I thought I’d share the outline with you anyway. You can listen to the sermon by downloading it or you can listen to it here:




I. HOW TO LIVE FOR THE FUTURE—Philippians 1:1-11

• Know Who You Are (verses 1-2)
  
  
  
  • A slave of the RISEN Jesus (NOT man) and saints—i.e. set apart and being cleansed.
    
    
  • Conduits of grace and peace.
  
  
  
• Know Where You Are Going (verse 6) BE SURE!
  
  
  
• Know Who You Are Going With — Long-term, heart-felt partnership (verses 5, 7, 8)
  
  
  
• Know What You Are Meant To Do On The Way
  
  
  
  1. Verse 5—“In the gospel,” i.e. live in the good of it and live for its progress, don’t just keep the chair warm! What do we do in its good ...
     
     
     
  2. Verse 3—Thankfulness that comes from remembrance.
     
     
     
  3. Verse 4—Prayer that is joyful and full of anticipation.
     
     
     
  4. Verse 9—Abounding, growing love.
     
     
     
  5. Verse 9—Desire to study. We will spend eternity with . . .
     
     
     
  6. Verse 9-10—Resultant wisdom/discernment, i.e. the ability to lovingly apply to life the things we learn.
     
     
     
  7. ALL of this results in verses 10-11—Purity that honors God.

II. RESULTS OF LIVING FOR THE FINAL DAY (Philippians 1:12-17)

• Verse 12-14—Confidence that comes from knowing even tough times are for our good, e.g. prison making confident!
  
  
  
• Verse 14—Boldness to declare this wonderful news!
  
  
  
• Verse 15-17—Preoccupation with the advance of the gospel above all partisanship, etc.
  
  
  
• Verse 17-20—Rejoicing, eager expectation, hope, “full of courage”, honor to Christ.
  
  
  
• Verse 21-30—Glorious indifference to our own life and its sufferings. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22) Let’s study to be prepared to die well.

CONCLUSION
Live a worthy life and fight for the gospel—“It’s all about Jesus!”

BACKGROUND QUOTES

“Hence we have a service which is not a matter of choice for the one who renders it, which he has to perform whether he likes or not, because he is subject as a slave to an alien will, to the will of his owner . . .

[The slave is one] who not only has no possibility of evading the tasks laid upon him, but who also has no right of personal choice, who must rather do what another will have done, and refrain from doing what another will not have done.”

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vols. 5-9, edited by Gerhard Friedrich. Vol. 10 compiled by Ronald Pitkin, Ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Electronic Ed., 2:261 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964-c1976).

“He is not merely putting up with his circumstances, he is going beyond that, he is exulting in his suffering. He is triumphant, he is jubilant. There is a marvellous element in this, he tells them, if they can but see it. This is characteristic New Testament teaching . . . Do not waste your tears on me or on my condition, says the Apostle.”

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in Ephesians—The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, Chapter 3, p. 17 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1972).

“Death was nothing to these apostles. They had already passed from death to life. Having passed from judgment to life in Him, they were not afraid of death. They knew where they were going—they were going “to be with Christ; which is far better” (Philippians 1:23).”

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Courageous Christianity, 1st U.S. ed., 173 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001).

If you're anything like me, and were at New Word Alive, or if you have listened to the audios online since that event, John Piper's two talks on "Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer" may well still be resonating with you.

You can read my notes on part 1 and part 2, of these messages, or listen to the audio at the following pages:

• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 1
  
  
• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 2

If you want to hear him in more detail on the same subject, he spoke for four sessions at the beginning of the Wheaton College fall session in September of 2007. This is a different session, so may have a different tone to the passionate preaching we heard at New Word Alive, but if you want to understand the concepts more deeply, these messages may well be worth listening to.

• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 1
  
  
• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 2
  
  
• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 3
  
  
• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 4
  
  
• Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Q&A Session

The second sermon that John Piper preached at New Word Alive is now available online. You can download the audio for free or read my notes.

UPDATE
Desiring God has now made the audio of this sermon available for free online.

Once again, Piper prayed and acknowledged his sense of unworthiness.

Romans 8:20 makes it plain that all suffering is judicial. It is a judicial act of God that brings these things on the earth. Because you have done this God says, “I will surely multiply your pain . . .” (Genesis 3:16). Natural evil is a weak testimony to the ghastliness of evil. This sin includes even our mere preferring of other things to God.

Having said that all suffering is a judicial sentence on the universe, verses 1 and 3 of chapter 8 make an important qualification. That is that no Christian experiences suffering as condemnation. Jesus absorbed all the condemnation of all the people who are united to him by faith. All of your suffering is not judgment and punishment—it is something else. It would be a tremendous dishonor for you to feel judged by God if you are in Christ.

Suffering in the Bible has many designs. For those who are unbelievers, all suffering is punishment, but all suffering is purification for believers. For those who are on their way to being Christians, suffering is to awaken them. For a non-Christian, what will happen with suffering will depend on what they do with Christ. If they turn to God it will have been in order to get their attention, and is thus redemptive, or it will be part of an everlasting life of judgment culminating in hell.

In the fall, God was doing more than merely responding to sin. He never is merely responsive. Instead he was permitting it by design so that he could carry out his purposes. God was fulfilling an eternal plan in order that the apex of his glory would be revealed through grace. The apex of his grace would be Christ. The apex of Christ's manifesting of grace would be his death on the cross. This is the reason the universe exists.

WHAT MORE WAS GOD DOING IN UNLEASHING SUFFERING?

Ephesians 1:6 says that we were predestined “to the praise of his glorious grace.” We exist to bring praise to the glory of his grace. Grace means being treated better than we deserve. Grace assumes demerit. If we were perfect we could not receive grace. Only fallen people can receive any grace! The world had to be allowed to fall in order for this to happen. This is not mere logic—it is driven by verses of the Bible! “. . . because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” (2 Timothy 1:9). The grace was all there and planned and given to us before the world was even made.

“. . . everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8). The word literally means slaughtered. It was not clean; it was not quick; and it was gross. You would have thrown up, or screamed, or run away. If the book was called the book of the killed one before the foundation of the world, then the slaughter was planned before the foundation of the world. If so, then the world was created and the fall allowed so that we might be forgiven. Some people say that in heaven we won’t remember horrible things. But the main thing we will remember is the most horrible thing that ever happened in the world.

We should not be thinking big thoughts about suffering, but big thoughts about Jesus’ supremacy. He is the center, the reason for everything. It is all about Jesus. Everything is pointing to Jesus as Creator and Redeemer of the universe. The main expression of grace is the crucifixion of Christ. When God subjected the world to Judas-like murderous treachery, he was preparing the cross in order for us to be saved.

In Christ's death on the cross there is a glory that is manifold. First, he purchased deliverance from pain for all those who are in him. “By his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53). Second, he purchased our faith. This faith is sustaining and will uphold us when we are not healed.

God is both healer and the one who satisfies the suffering soul. We can glorify God by being healed. Piper said he believes wholeheartedly in the gift of healing. He thinks we should ask God to heal people by placing hands on the sick person’s shoulder. No need to add magic words. “If it be your will.” Just ask. Do what you would want someone else to do for you. If you love people, you will pray for them.

But in verse 23 we groan inwardly. In the midst of suffering that is not removed by healing, the cross purchased the grace to still be satisfied in God. Even we groan. This is there to prevent over-realized eschatology. Since Christ has purchased healing some say it is all now. Excessive charismatics get the notion that we can have every healing now. In fact, the sustaining grace is normal in this age, and the healing grace seems less common. God wants the people around us to marvel at the worth of Jesus when we love him in pain.

Why does the proportion of these two graces work the way it does? When a person is miraculously healed of a cancer, there are several things about that which do not bring as much glory. There are several ambiguities about healings that mean less praise might go up to God. First of all, people doubt the medical side of it and say that the original pictures were wrong. Second, are people praising the glory of Jesus or are they giving glory to health? Third, a few years later the healing is probably largely forgotten and there are no more prayer meetings for that man. In a sense that is perhaps why God doesn't always heal—in order that the value of Christ might be seen in a man who goes on loving God in the midst of suffering.

WHAT HELPS ARE THERE FOR US?

• After this time there will be a glory for us to see, that will satisfy our soul. We love to see greatness. We will be granted the soul-satisfying sight of the greatest reality in the universe.
  
  
• But, as we see in verse 19, there will be a revealing of the sons of God to the universe. We don't look like children of God yet. Our faces will shine like the sun in the kingdom. We will be changed (verse 21). Creation will be set free into the freedom of the glory of the children of God! We will be glorified. There is a freedom. We are bound up. We will become fit to see and enjoy. Our British restraints won't matter any more, or the fact that your dad beat you up. It’s all going to change. The sting of death will have been taken away. We will be capable of infinite happiness in Christ.
  
  
• We will see a rearrangement of creation that will allow all this to happen. The universe is about people. He changes us, then changes everything. Mountains and seas will not be thrown away. The new heavens and earth are this world renewed. We will be satisfied.
  
  
• God promises that the miseries of the universe are not death throes, but birth pangs. If you are in the kingdom now, every pain is about something new coming. If you hear a scream in a hospital, you will interpret it differently, depending on if you hear it in a cancer ward or a labor ward.
  
  
• We are to be more than conquerors. Not just death lying dead before you. What is better is if you say, “Death, get up and serve me well!” Your enemies become your servants in Christ. Whatever suffering comes your way will serve you. All things are ours—even life and death. (1 Corinthians 3:23) "Death, you think you are my enemy. Make my day!”

Piper finished with a quote of which I only caught a snippet. He said he longs for us to “Hold our lives cheap, live dangerously, and be reckless in his service!”

Here are some interviews I recorded with people around the site here in North Wales to gauge the response to John Piper's sermon on suffering. I end the clip with some of my own thoughts this morning after having slept on it overnight.

UPDATE
The audio version of Piper's evening session, "Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 1" is now available. You can listen to it right here or download it from the Desiring God website.

Romans 8:1-35. I have often said that this chapter in the Bible is surely one of the most foundational for Christian living. I was therefore thrilled to discover that John Piper would be preaching from it this evening. In fact, Piper went on to claim that this is the greatest chapter in the entire Bible. As is always the case when he preaches, the audio and video of this sermon will be made available very soon, and I will add the links to this post.

Dr. Piper began by saying that he believes in what this New Word Alive conference event stands for. The text this evening, like the one that Don Carson spoke on this morning, hit upon the very reason for the existence of this conference. Even Piper's opening prayer was instructing. It was clear that he was leaning heavily on God’s strength and ability to help him in preaching. He prayed for us, his hearers, that we might be prepared to face future suffering that will inevitably come to each of us.

There is a real danger that Christ becomes merely the means and not the end of our salvation. Why is this? It’s because he is the means of our salvation. If he had not died, we would be judged. But there are forms of teaching, such as the “prosperity gospel” and other less obvious ones, that all mean we never quite get to the end of the gospel. Even forgiveness and justification are not the end. They are in order that God might bring us to Christ.

Treasuring Christ would change everything in our lives. It is the answer to our current world. Matthew 13:44 is Piper's favorite parable. The man found a treasure, and in his joy he went and sold everything he had and bought that field. When Christ came into the world and offered himself for us it was in order that we might have him. He is to us a treasure beyond all value. There is no sacrifice when we give up things in order to have Jesus. He is that valuable. If we love even our family more than Jesus, we are not worthy of him. He is more important than our life. Love of the Lord is better than life.

Do we truly treasure Christ? It is right to receive him as Lord and Savior. But we have to get beyond merely those things that Jesus has done for us. He wasn't simply useful to get us to heaven. He is not just “useful”—he is everything! He is King.

In John 17 Jesus prayed for you and me—that we might be with Jesus and see his glory. How thin is our concept of this. Even some Evangelicals are fearful of this idea. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” The good news is the glory of Jesus! We will spend eternity beholding—with ever increasing joy—his glory.

Decisions are easy. Perfection is impossible. If you feel you don't treasure him enough, join the club. Every day John Piper prays about his failing emotions. He said that his main battle is with the way his own heart is drawn to his computer, his family, etc. This is what the Christian walk is all about.

Turn the word "treasure" from a noun into a verb. Then preach in such a way that your people learn to value Christ above their jobs and careers, above money and health.

The experience of life that causes the value of Christ to be seen most clearly is when he is treasured in suffering. When he is treasured in spite of all the terrible statistics, or maybe even because of them. When everything goes wrong and you say, “Christ is all.” That is how we move from conviction to action. In Acts, a persecution led to 10,000 Christian refugees. It seems that this was needed for the Great Commission to be fulfilled. They went everywhere telling the good news. Only because they treasured Christ more than the church and city they had just lost could they have shared the gospel in those ways.

If all is going well and you say you follow Christ, no one will be impressed. But what if you lose your wife, your home, and your health? What it they then look at you and see that you are contented. They will ask you, “What are you hoping in?” Your reply should be, “Christ is more valuable than all of this.” And then they just might believe you.

In Romans 8:16-17 we see the call to suffer. There is a condition here. That we suffer with him. We suffer in order that we may eventually be resurrected and be glorified in heaven. If you reject the call to suffer, you will not go to heaven. Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God. This is not meant to call into question our standing with God. In verse 30 we see the clear affirmation that the called are glorified. Thus, God will see that those who he has justified will come through their sufferings looking like gold. Eternal security is not mechanical. It is absolutely certain, but this is in the sovereignty of God. Tomorrow morning God will make sure you wake up wanting to get to glory. Don't run from suffering, embrace it. The glory makes suffering worth it.

Verses 1-17. You are now free from all divine condemnation. Verse 2 offers evidence, not grounds. The receiving of the Spirit is the evidence. The grounds are what God did in sending his own son so that the Spirit could be unleashed into us. He condemned sin in the flesh. Whose flesh? Jesus' flesh. Whose sin? Our sin. That is why this conference exists. That is the heart of the gospel, and it is precious beyond words. That this gospel is being rejected in this nation and in America is appalling beyond words.

Someone might argue, “Sin was condemned, but not Christ.” Piper then explained: Imagine I got you on stage and said, “I’m going to hit you in the face, but it’s not you I'm hitting, it’s just your attitude.” NO! It was the will of the Lord to bruise him. God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. He was wounded for us. His punishment set us free. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He struck him. It was God the Father who killed Jesus. It is considered today to be appalling to teach or sing this. Piper said it is not appalling to him, it is his very life!

The Spirit manifests himself in many ways later in the chapter. Then we come to suffering in verses 18 to 25. He starts as follows—it is worth it. Sufferings are not comparable to the glory. It’s hard to feel this when we are in it. He steps back from our pain. We have to be careful how we do this. There is a regular rhythm between standing by a sick bed and behind a pulpit in a long-term pastoral ministry.

Suffering is Universal
God is not included, nor are the non-fallen angels. Everyone else and everything else suffers. The whole creation is groaning. It was given over to futility. It is not just about me. It is not because of my sin specifically necessarily. Something global has brought this horrid reality to pass.

Suffering is Historical
It has a beginning in history, and will continue to the end of “this present time.” There was a specific event that led to suffering—it “was subjected.”

Suffering is Judicial
This is most important, most controversial, and most helpful. In verse 20 it is clear that somebody took the universe and disordered it. Someone brought painful disorder to our relationships, workplaces, etc. GOD did it. We know it must have been God because it was done in hope! There can only be two other candidates—Adam and the devil. Did Adam and Eve sin in the hope of a future new heaven and earth? They didn't have a clue about that when they fell! Was it the devil's design to do it in hope? No! Only God did this in hope. God judged the universe because of sin. This is not moral consequentialism. Hell is explained that way, the atonement is explained that way, your suffering is explained that way. People are becoming deists. Without Romans 8 deeply gripping your soul, our first reaction is to distance God from suffering. It is as though we want to defend God! Deism hasn't comforted a human soul in the midst of pain in a thousand years. Piper said he has buried many people, has walked through people's divorces, and has seen wayward children. We need something that will help us face suffering.

The meaning of all misery in the universe is that sin is horrific. All natural evil such as floods, disease, etc. is a statement about the horror of moral evil. God looked upon sin, and he said, "Here is my response to that." He subjected the entire creation to this. Until you see the moral outrage of sin in proper proportions, and the magnificence of God in proper proportions, that will seem to you like an over-reaction. The world will say, “That’s ridiculous! He saw one sin and he did all that?” The reason for suffering is to teach you about your heart. You don't even get close to understanding the horror of the way you treat your wife. There is a moral scandal about falling short of God's glory.

If you see a soldier tripping over his own entrails and then dying, choking on his blood, you see a tiny fraction of the horrors of the world. Without this text that God subjected the world to futility in response to moral evil, we don't understand how bad sin is. He has to use bodies to show that to us. We wouldn't understand otherwise.

Nobody says it was unjust of God to save us! We all think we deserve him to save us. He says to us, "If you want to know how horrendous your sin is, look at AIDS and cancer.”

The gospel is good news for everybody who will receive the Jesus who suffered for them. Don't conclude that because there is no condemnation we will have no suffering. Our light and momentary troubles will appear as nothing when we are with Christ.

Piper then closed with prayer, thanking God for the smell of the green pastures that we have coming towards us. The day is coming when suffering will be over. He promised to explain all this further tomorrow evening.

My buddy, Mark Moore, has asked us to pray for a friend of his who is a pastor facing persecution in India. See Mark's blog for the full story:

“One of our international pastors in Acts 29, Pastor Sudhakar in India, is facing tremendous persecution, having been drug out of his church on a Sunday morning and beaten by twenty men. He is now standing trial for "converting Hindus to Christianity."

I'm back, but tired, and as usual, when I simply don't have anything to say myself and it's getting to the end of the week, I turn to one of the greatest living preachers—John Piper. Last Friday I quoted from his first talk in a series on suffering. Today I will quote from the second. It is striking how boldly he states that he believes in healing today, but in a context where this world in which we live is one in which we groan for heaven.

God’s Ordinary Way Today: Partially

Don’t misunderstand: I do believe in divine healing and miraculous rescues. God can today—and he does today—take away sicknesses and rescue miraculously. However, there is good reason to believe that his ordinary way of applying what he bought at the cross is to give it partially now. His normal path is that we arrive in the kingdom along the path of affliction.

A Groaning World—Even for Christians

Let me give you one passage on this: Romans 8:18-25. Paul says that now the whole creation groans. It is a groaning world. And then Paul adds: We ourselves, the ones with the Holy Spirit, groan, waiting for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Even people filled with the Holy Spirit groan—waiting, waiting, waiting. How long, O Lord, in this wheelchair? With this Alzheimer’s? Sometimes he heals now. But sometimes healing comes at [the] end.

John Piper has a glorious richness in his preaching repertoire. Almost every time he is invited to preach anywhere it seems he produces a brand new message. He makes the Bible fresh. Today I want to return to the habit of posting a quote from Piper on Fridays by sharing an astonishing quote from an amazing talk he recently gave:

Let me underline one of the statements I’ve already made: Suffering is an essential part of your Christian existence. I choose the word essential very carefully. Paul said to new believers in Acts 14:22, “Through many tribulations we will enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is Christianity 101. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3 that we Christians are destined for suffering. This is your destiny—suffering. Think it not strange when the fiery ordeal comes upon you. And 2 Timothy 3:12: All who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted. And Romans 8:16: We are fellow heirs if we suffer with him. There is one God-appointed path to glorification—suffering. If you are making it your life ambition to avoid suffering, you will perish and suffer forever . . ." (emphasis mine).