Transcript Youtube John Piper Talk 2 Ephesians 3 Lausanne Cape Town 2010 cf Social action &

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Bible Exposition: Ephesians 3 - John Piper (Part 2) - Cape Town 2010

Bible Exposition: Ephesians 3 - John Piper (Part 2) - Cape Town 2010

25,758 viewsSep 27, 2011
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Lausanne Movement
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American evangelical author John Piper continues his discussion of Ephesians 3. He addresses the
mystery of the gospel and the wrath of God that Christ took upon himself. God appoints suffering
and prayer as a means for declaring his glory.
(See Part 1: http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/c...)

From the Lausanne Movement's Cape Town 2010 Congress. Join the conversation:

http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/c...
Transcript

0:13
>> Scene number one: There are three parts you remember.
0:21
The wisdom of God being manifest to the powers and rulers and authorities, the demons and
0:30
to Satan himself, the prince of the power of the air.
0:38
Number two, the riches, the unsearchable riches of the glory of Christ.
0:45
Verse 8.
0:47
Third, the revelation of the mystery hidden for ages in God.
0:55
Verse 9, now, my question is, what’s the relationship between these three parts of
1:03
scene one?
1:04
How do they relate to each other?
1:09
The clue as to how they relate is found in the meaning of the mystery.
1:17
And I direct your attention now to verse 6 because in verse 6, we have the definition
1:26
of the mystery that has been secret for ages and now is being revealed.
1:32
What is it?
1:35
Verse 6, the mystery is that the Gentiles, that's most of us here, the nations, are now
1:46
fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the
1:59
Gospel.
2:02
The mystery is that the Gentiles, the nations, are now included in the promises of God made
2:12
to Israel.
2:14
That is why verse 8 says Paul preaches to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of the
2:25
Christ, the Messiah.
2:30
This is stunning that now all the nations are included in all the promises made to Israel.
2:40
This is the mystery.
2:44
All the promises of God made in the Old Testament are now ‘yes’ in Christ Jesus, in Messiah
2:52
Jesus.
2:53
And everyone who is connected to Jesus by faith alone is an heir of all the promises
3:03
of God in the Old Testament.
3:07
Now, the connection between that and the unsearchable riches of the Messiah is that that’s what
3:19
they inherit.
3:22
The mystery is that all of the unsearchable riches of the Messiah and his kingdom are
3:32
now inherited not only by Christ-trusting Jews but by Christ-trusting pagan Gentiles
3:44
from every people and tongue and tribe and nation.
3:48
That's the mystery and that's the connection between the first two parts of the scene.
3:57
The unsearchable riches of the Messiah which we're all on tip-toe to fully receive and
4:04
the mystery are connected because the mystery is that the nations participate in the promises
4:14
made to Israel and those promises are summed up in the unsearchable riches of the Messiah.
4:22
Now, the question is, how does that connection, unsearchable riches participated in by all
4:37
the nations, relate to the manifestation of the wisdom of God to the devil?
4:48
And the answer is found in the last phrase of verse 6.
4:54
Look at it with me.
4:57
This mystery, this inclusion of the nations in the unsearchable riches of the Messiah
5:04
is -- notice the phrase, through the Gospel.
5:11
The nations are streaming in to the unsearchable riches of the Messiah through the Gospel.
5:20
What's that?
5:22
The clearest, most concise definition of the Gospel that Paul ever gave was found in verses
5:31
1 and 4 of First Corinthians 15.
5:34
I'll just read it for you.
5:36
You know it.
5:37
“Now I would remind you of the Gospel, verse 4, that Christ died for our sins in accordance
5:50
with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance
6:02
with the scriptures.”
6:04
So we Gentiles, we nations of the earth, are streaming in to the unsearchable riches of
6:14
the Messiah through Christ's dying for us.
6:24
And being buried and rising triumphant over sin and death and Satan and guilt and shame
6:34
and hell.
6:37
It happens through the cross.
6:41
Now my question is this.
6:43
How does the cross relate to the wisdom of God displayed to the devil and his messengers?
6:55
And you know where I'm going.
6:59
I'm going to First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 22, for the relationship between the
7:06
Gospel, the cross and the wisdom of God displayed to the universe.
7:13
It reads like this.
7:16
“Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.
7:23
But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles but
7:34
to those who are called from both Jews and the nations, the Greeks, Christ the power
7:45
of God and the wisdom of God.”
7:54
The crucifixion of the Messiah is not the wisdom of the world.
8:00
It is not the power of the world.
8:03
To the world it is foolishness and it is weak.
8:08
But to those who are called whose eyes are open by the sovereign call of God, the cross
8:16
is in reality, power and divine wisdom.
8:23
When the Messiah dies on the cross, he creates the church out of all the nations of the world.
8:39
And the world and the devil in this death and in this global creation of a new humanity
8:51
we see the wisdom of God in Christ but the amazing thing is in a little phrase at the
9:04
beginning of verse 10.
9:10
We don't just see the wisdom of God in Christ, his person and his work.
9:22
We do.
9:23
We do.
9:24
That is where it shines most brightly.
9:26
But what it says at the beginning of verse 10 is this.
9:31
So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to all those
9:43
wicked powers.
9:47
This is breath taking.
9:48
There isn't anything greater that can be said about this reality, in this room called the
9:56
church and all over the world, there isn't anything greater that can be said about the
10:00
global church of Jesus but that through the death of the Messiah, God has created a people
10:10
in whom he means for his infinite wisdom to be manifest to the cosmic powers of evil.
10:18
It is a stunning thought.
10:24
So scene number one, is the inclusion of the nations in the unsearchable riches of the
10:33
Messiah, through the Gospel of Christ crucified and that crucifixion is the wisdom of God
10:41
displayed and it is displayed through the church in the world.
10:48
And one day, God hasten the day, one day all the rulers and all the authorities and all
10:58
the demons and Satan himself as they are thrown in to the lake of fire will be forced to say,
11:07
God is infinitely wise.
11:12
Now, before I turn to scene number two and three, we'll take them together in just a
11:21
moment.
11:22
Before I do that, I want you to notice one more implication and I felt led to draw this
11:31
out.
11:32
I rewrote this last night for us because I think there is a tension among us that could
11:40
be overcome if I get this right.
11:46
Why does it require the crucifixion of the Son of God in order for the Jewish people
11:56
and the nations to enter the unsearchable riches of Christ?
12:04
Why that price?
12:09
Now there are different ways to answer that.
12:14
I'm going to give you one crucial, indispensible way and it's found in a little phrase in verse
12:24
3 of chapter 2 so if you'll drop your eyes with me up, I'm going to read this verse and
12:34
point out one phrase which is indispensible in this Congress if we're to get the Gospel
12:41
right and evangelism right and the wisdom of God right.
12:47
Verse 3 of chapter 2.
12:49
“We all once lived among the sons of disobedience, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out
12:59
the desires of the body and the mind and were” -- here it comes – “by nature children
13:08
of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
13:14
It's terrifying.
13:22
All human beings are children of wrath by nature.
13:32
They didn't just decide to be this way.
13:36
It's their nature.
13:37
My nature, your nature is sinful and corrupt and rebellious.
13:45
Christ did not have to die merely because I'm a sinner.
13:52
He had to die because God in his infinite holiness and justice is angry at the world.
14:02
We are children of anger.
14:05
We are justly deserving of the wrath and the anger of God.
14:12
This is the greatest problem for mankind in the universe.
14:19
There isn't anything that surpasses lostness and being bound for an everlasting suffering
14:28
under the wrath of God.
14:32
Now you can feel perhaps the tension.
14:41
If God had not in love put Christ between his wrath and us, so that Christ according
14:54
to Galatians 3:13 become the curse for us, he became the curse for us or according to
15:02
Romans chapter 8, verse 3, he bore the condemnation for our sin.
15:08
It stuck on him.
15:12
If God had not done that, all Jews and all nations would perish forever under the just
15:19
condemnation of God.
15:21
And God did put Christ forward.
15:24
He did offer his own Son so that anyone everywhere who believes in him would not suffer eternally.
15:34
Now, here is a statement I want to venture.
15:38
Please go with me here.
15:40
I'm begging God that you would be able to go with me here.
15:44
There are two truths that are in tension in this room and in the global church.
15:54
There are many but I'm talking about two.
15:57
One truth goes like this.
15:59
When the Gospel takes root in our souls, it impels us outward to the alleviation of all
16:09
unjust human suffering in this age.
16:14
Yesterday was a loud thunder cloud of that truth and it is true.
16:21
And there's another truth, and the other truth is, when the Gospel takes root in our souls,
16:29
it awakens us to the horrible reality of eternal suffering in hell under the wrath of a just
16:40
and omnipotent God.
16:43
And it impels us out to rescue the perishing.
16:47
We cry, “Flee the wrath to come.
16:50
Flee the wrath to come.”
16:53
That's our message because Christ has died.
16:56
He has absorbed the wrath of God.
16:58
He has canceled sin.
17:00
Everyone who is united to him by faith alone is forgiven of their sins and counted righteous
17:06
in Christ and has eternal life.
17:08
Come, o nations.
17:10
Come to Christ.
17:12
That's our message.
17:13
It is the most important news in the universe.
17:19
Here is my sentence I want to try on you.
17:25
Some love the one truth preeminently.
17:31
Others, the other.
17:35
What I want us to be able to say, could the Lausanne say, could the global church say
17:46
this: for Christ's sake we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.
18:05
I don't want you to choose between these two truths.
18:13
Christ doesn't want you to choose between pouring your life out for the alleviation
18:18
of unjust human suffering now and the pouring out your life to rescue the perishing from
18:24
everlasting suffering which is 10 million times worse than anything anybody will ever
18:30
experience here.
18:31
I don't want to you choose between those two.
18:33
Christ is calling us to pull these together.
18:44
If there rises in your heart a resistance to the phrase ‘especially eternal suffering’
18:53
or if there rises in your heart or resistance to the phrase ‘we care about all suffering
19:00
now,’ if resistance rises to either one of those, either we have a defective view
19:09
of hell or a defective heart.
19:14
Now, I close just very briefly with a reference to scene number two and scene number three.
19:22
We spent almost all of our time on scene one.
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We'll just wrap it up with a brief look at scene number two and three.
19:28
Namely suffering and prayer.
19:29
And it goes like this.
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God appoints suffering and prayer as means of gathering the nations into the unsearchable
19:39
riches of the glory of God's wisdom.
19:43
Suffering and prayer.
19:45
Prison and prayer are appointed by God.
19:48
When Paul was willing to go to prison for the sake of Christ, he showed the nations
19:54
that Christ is more precious than freedom.
19:58
When Paul was willing to suffer for Christ, he showed the nations that Christ is more
20:04
precious than comfort and security and prosperity.
20:08
In other words, the infinite value of the wisdom of God is revealed not in Paul's prosperity
20:14
but in Paul's pain, in his prison.
20:18
That's where it shines because this is the wisdom of the cross and we are called to take
20:24
up our crosses and display to the demons that we treasure Christ more than any human comfort.
20:32
We're not after prosperity.
20:34
We're after Christ.
20:36
And so our suffering then becomes the glory of the nations.
20:41
They see the beauty and value and glory of the unsearchable riches of Christ in our willingness
20:50
to go to prison or to suffer in order to draw them into it with us.
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That's the way God has made it to be.
20:59
Now, last comment.
21:03
Nobody chooses to go to prison.
21:09
Nobody chooses to walk away from prosperity.
21:15
Nobody can see the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ so
21:21
fully, that they're willing to’ let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.’
21:29
Nobody says with the apostle Paul, ‘I count everything as loss for the surpassing value
21:36
of knowing Christ our Lord.’
21:38
Nobody talks like that unless divine, supernatural, sovereign, omnipotent power has broken into
21:47
their lives and God has ordained that it come into our lives through prayer.
21:53
So, unto you, o Lord, who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think
22:04
through the power that is at work in us, to you, o Lord, be glory in the church and in
22:14
Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.
22:20
And all the people said Amen.
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