O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
     my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
     as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
     beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
     my lips will praise you (Psalm 63:1–3).

The reason I start with that is as a kind of completion of Psalm 96. One of the questions asked to us was, “How do you get a church razzed up for missions?” My answer was that you don’t. You get them razzed up for God, and missions follows. Do you hear those two Psalms. Psalm 96 says, “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.” But that’s a task. You’re not going to do that if you’re not saying, “O, God, you are my God. Your steadfast love is better than life.”

So my prayer — as I was praying for you this morning — is that as we sit here, you would experience a sweet sense of, “He’s my God. He’s my Savior. I have a God who loves me. I have a Savior who died for me. My sins are forgiven. My guilt is gone. Heaven is in front of me. Hell is over. Judgment is past. There’s only good coming toward me. Even if it’s hard, it’s good.” I am praying for a sweet sense, not a sense of, “Oh, there’s stuff to learn. Oh, there are burdens to bear. There’s tasks to do.” The Christian life is a sweet, steady communion with the living God undergirding all the tasks in the world. It’s not about tasks mainly. It’s about knowing him, loving him, and resting in him.

I think people who are pouring themselves out in more or less hard situations for others that they might know God, meet God at the deepest levels. And John Patton is one of the favorite biographies I’ve ever done. Let me read this to you.

Sweetest Communion in the Hardest Times

John Paton was a Scottish missionary about 150 years ago. He went to the New Hebrides, but now it’s called Vanuatu. And he ministered, lost his wife, and almost went insane at her grave. He ministered among cannibals who had eaten the first two Scottish ministries, missionaries who went there. And it didn’t go well on Tana for the first four years and he was driven out. This is what he wrote about inserting himself between warring factions on the tribe and risking his life over and over again:

Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Savior, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” became so real to me that it would not have startled me to behold him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene. I felt his supporting power. It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly 20 years later, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smiles of my blessed Lord in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being leveled at my life. Oh, the bliss of living and enduring, as seeing him who is invisible.

Now, I’ve never stared down a musket. But I’ve had a few hard times. And I just know this is true. And you do too. Nobody has ever said, “I learned more of Jesus on the brightest, easiest sunny days.” Nobody has ever said that. At least I’ve never heard anybody say it. And I’ve never said it. The steady testimony of human nature is when times are hard, God gets real or doesn’t. And he gets sweetly real. That’s what he’s saying. He said, “I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smiles of my blessings, Lord, in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being leveled at my life.” I just want to balance last night’s praising Psalm with this reality. Last night it was:

Declare his glory among the nations,
     his marvelous works among all the peoples! . . .
Splendor and majesty are before him;
     strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
     ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! (Psalm 96:3–6).

You’re just kind of soaring in your missionary task at that moment. And behind that are dread moments where God either gets very sweet and dear and precious to you, or he doesn’t. And if that foundation isn’t there, this won’t last. You’ll be fired up for six weeks after a missions conference. And then you’ll just be back to your ordinary self, unless you know him like that.

Learning the Nations

I want to point out this book again, Operation World. I got it out this morning, again, laying on the floor beside my little stool. We’re spending five days on Russia here, October 12th through 16th. A secondary reason for having this book and dipping into it daily is education. The first is supplication. That’s what this is for. Pray for Russian peoples today. But secondarily, you don’t know much about Russia. I mean, the new Russia, the new former Soviet Socialist. The Russia I knew when I was growing up is not the Russia of today. It is a whole new reality out there of new regions and new whatever they call them.

Here’s a section called geoethnic regions of the Russian Federation. Did you even know there was such a thing? I don’t even know any of that language. What’s a geoethnic region and what’s a Russian Federation? Then there’s a big section on the Southern Federal District and the Northwestern Federal District, and all the republics that are in there, and the Urals District, the Siberian District and the Eastern Federal District. And then we get to Rwanda in a few days.

On page 711, it says, “There are 78 ethnic minorities considered unreached, totaling over 13 million people in Russia.” This is a lot of pages to pray for. You can’t pray every single sentence here. So, this morning, I just paused for a moment and prayed that God would do something about that: “Reach those 78 ethnic minorities. Bring them to the attention of evangelicals in Argentina or Mexico. Do amazing things, Lord, to awaken your church to this particular need.” And then in a few days, it’ll be a totally different need. This one will go.

If you believe in prayer, and there are these pictures in the Bible of this sensor in front of God’s throne, where the smoke is going up and he’s smelling it, and he loves the smell and those are the prayers of the saints, the incense to God. In Revelation 8, he takes the sensor at one point and dumps it on the earth. So, if you think you’ve ever prayed a prayer in vain, you didn’t. It’s just in the sensors still pleasing God. In due time, it will be dumped.

Take the prayer, “Hallowed be thy name.” That’s been prayed billions of times by people. Have they been answered? Oh, they will be answered. That will be the final answer. I mean, that’s a big sensor. You have a billion prayers all giving off sweet incense to the Lord, gathering and getting bigger and bigger and bigger until the thing ignites and he just throws it on the earth and wraps it all up. And your little prayer in some midnight hour that God would hallow his name will be answered. It might be 1,000 years from now, far as I know, but it will not have been wasted. You need to believe that God hears your prayer.

The Question About Hearing the Gospel

Here we are with question number three. The question we’re asking is, “Must a person hear the gospel in order to be saved?” The first two questions were, “Is there anything that you need to be saved from that’s eternal and terrible?” And I answered, yes. And the second question was, “Is there another way to be saved besides the atoning work of Jesus, whether you hear about it or not?” And I answered, no, there isn’t. Only the work of Jesus can save us from the mess that was made of humanity by the fall of Adam because Jesus is the second Adam. To be in him is to be in a new humanity that is covenant-bound towards heaven. To be in the old humanity alone is to be perishing. So Jesus is a universal remedy for Adam’s fall. He’s not a tribal remedy. There isn’t an alternative remedy.

We do have audacious claims as Christians. This is why you get in trouble trying to be a Christian because Christians make audacious claims. They go around saying, “Jesus is the only way.” And the response you get is, “Who in the world do you think you are foisting your religion on me?” And we just have to humbly say, “I’m not foisting anything on you. Jesus is the only way. He came to me and he presented himself to me. He claims to be the way and I’m just telling you what he said.”

The third question is, “Must a person hear the gospel in order to be saved?” I’m going to develop an argument that says, yes, they must. Here’s the reason this is a little more tricky than the others, exegetically. Historically, that’s not always been true. That is, nobody knew the name Jesus before he was incarnate. Nobody had ever heard the message of the cross after it happened before it happened. So, in the Old Testament, the conscious locus of saving faith wasn’t the same as it is after the cross. And my argument is that God intends that after the incarnation, Jesus will be the conscious locus of all saving faith, which means then that missions becomes imperative if that’s true. If people can get saved without hearing about Jesus, then missions isn’t quite as urgent. But if my argument is right — namely, that you must hear about him to put your faith in him, or you can’t be saved — it means we have to go or be heartless. So, that’s where we’re going.

The Mystery of Christ

So, first step in the argument, the term, “mystery of Christ” right there. What is it? Ephesians 3:4–6 says:

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

So my first argument is that all the nations out there now, we are told, in a way nobody was told before, are included in the covenant if they belong to Christ, and it happens through the gospel. And if they don’t hear it, it doesn’t happen.

Accountability

All are accountable for what they know, not what they don’t know. If I’m getting interviewed on the radio or television, they ask, “So you think everybody’s lost and going to hell, even though they didn’t have a chance to hear Jesus, right? Is that what you believe?” I would go to this text and draw out this truth:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (this is called general revelation). So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:18–21).

So, my answer is that nobody will be judged for not believing in Jesus if they’ve never heard of Jesus. People will be judged only for what they know and have not lived up to. And everybody knows enough to be judged and nobody lives up to it. That’s my answer. So I don’t say people are condemned for not believing in a Jesus they’ve never heard of. Rather, people are condemned for not giving thanks to or worshiping God. Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. What did they do? They suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. So everybody is accountable for what they know, not what they don’t know.

Times of Ignorance

Now, step number three in the argument has to do with times of ignorance. Leap in the middle here with this Acts 17:30 text:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent . . .

Notice the shift. There was this time, he calls it “the times of ignorance” when he was letting people go their own way. And now, he’s sending out a word to the world: “Repent.” He continues:

Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:31).

He’s going to judge the world through Jesus Christ. These are not times of ignorance anymore. These are times of repentance, which means the church now, as Jesus says in Luke 24, is to go and preach repentance to the whole world. It’s just amazing what he’s committed to us as a church. We’re now back up to Romans 2:12:

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

That’s another way of saying Romans 1:18–21. If you’ve never heard the law, you will not perish because of disobeying what you never read. You will perish because of what you already know in your heart and have disobeyed. But all perish. There’s only one salvation, and that’s through Jesus, not through law. Here’s 1 Corinthians 1:21:

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

Notice the difference. In God’s wisdom, he ordained that the world not know God through human wisdom. Socrates couldn’t think his way into salvation. Aristotle couldn’t get there. No Buddha can get there by human wisdom. God chose it to be that way. In the wisdom of God, it is that way. So, since that’s not happening, salvation is not coming that way. God, through the folly of what we preach, saves those who believe, which means we need to preach. How shall they believe if they don’t hear? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they’re sent? In this new era, when there are no times of ignorance anymore, we are called to preach the gospel so that people can be saved.

No Belief Apart from Preaching

Here’s the key text. This is Romans 10:11–16:

The Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

That’s one of the most fundamental statements in the Bible. That does not emerge in the stars. It emerges through the mouths of preachers, missionaries. I regard this text right here as profoundly basic to answering the question of, “Do you have to hear in order to be saved?” Here’s the conclusion of Charles Hodge:

The solemn question implied in the language of the apostle in Romans 10, “How can they believe without a preacher?” should sound day and night in the ears of the churches.

It is our remarkable privilege to be caught up in the greatest movement in history, the ingathering of the elect from all the tribes, languages and peoples of the nations until the phone number of the Gentiles comes in, and all Israel is saved, and the Son of Man descends with power and great glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. And the earth is full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Question and Answer

Let’s pause there for a question. Is there anything busting to be asked before we shift gears and move on? That’s my answer to question three. Do the nations of the world, these 78 unreached peoples in the Former Soviet Union, need to be reached with a hearable, understandable articulation of, “Jesus died for you. He rose again. If you believe in him, he can forgive your sins, take away God’s wrath, and give you eternal life” in order to be saved? And my answer is, yes. And you don’t need a college degree or seminary degree to tell them either.

We hear stories of visions and dreams where people are being led to Christ that way. Is that legitimate?

Here’s the distinction I made. And I think it’s important. A dream that leads you to the gospel by which you are saved is the way I see it in Acts 10–11, which was Cornelius’s situation. Cornelius had a vision and the vision was, “Go down to Joppa. There’s a man there. Tell him to come here and preach to you because you’re going to get saved when you hear this message.” I think that’s glorious and God can do that anytime he wants and not break any of his rules. The other stories I hear, not as often, is that inside a person’s head they heard the whole gospel. Somebody preached to them. There’s some angel preaching to them. They never heard the Bible. They never heard Jesus. And the gospel is preached in their head and they get saved. I put a big question mark over that. I said, “Look, I can’t call you a liar for telling me that. I just doubt it. I just really doubt that’s happening.”

If it is ever happening — God is God — it’s not normative because it doesn’t comport with Romans 10:13–17. How shall they call on whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Now at that point, they might say, “God gives them a preacher in their head.” And the next sentence is, and how shall they preach unless they’re sent? And he means sent by human beings from churches so that they can go from God to them. I don’t think the logic of that text allows for any normative sense of that happening. The practical implication is, don’t fall into a typical approach of praying for the nonnormative. You hear people start to pray, “O, God, send dreams and send visions. Get people saved where the gospel has not gone.” That’s just terrible praying. That’s not biblical praying.

Signs and wonders in Acts 4 are prayed for. Do you know how they work? They pray, “Give signs and wonders while your servants preach the word of God with boldness as confirming signs for the word of

How were people saved before the atonement?

People were saved before Christ by hearing of the covenant God and the covenant promises and putting their faith in the true and living God and the promises he made of a sacrifice and a Messiah, an Isaiah 53 type person coming. So, it’s very much the same in terms of needing special revelation. God speaks to Abraham and reveals the true God with the true future coming through a true Messiah. And those outside, if they don’t hear that, they’re in the same situation as Romans 1.

They don’t know Jesus by name. They don’t know all that he’s going to do. They don’t know how the blood sacrifices of bulls and goats are pointing to something. They just know the blood of bulls and goats did not ultimately take away sin. They knew that, at least in their best moments they did because David said so in Psalm 51. But they didn’t know how. They were all pointing to something. And that we know what they were pointing to, namely, Jesus.

God’s Purpose Behind the Mission

What’s behind the mission? God’s ultimate purpose in creation and redemption, what is it? We need to know so we can join him in it. The rest of this seminar is clustered around the three big chapters in the book: “The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Worship,” “The Supremacy of God in Missions through Prayer,” and “The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Suffering.” So worship, prayer, and suffering is the outline for where we’re going. What is God’s ultimate purpose? God’s ultimate goal in creation and redemption is to uphold the display of his glory for (and in) the enjoyment of his redeemed people, from every tribe, language, and nation. That is, God’s ultimate goal is joyful worship and worship becomes then the fuel and the goal of missions.

Here are biblical texts to show God’s zeal for his own glory. Now, I’m going to spend a good bit of time on this because even though for some of you, it may be familiar, it may be that for some of you, this is newer. It has been the most important thing in my discovery about God, since I was age 21, namely, that God is passionate concerning his glory and does everything for his glory. So, we’re going to tick through texts pretty quick. I have got 30 of them. I don’t think we’ll look at all of them. We’ll see how much time we’ll take on this.

For My Name’s Sake

This is the most dense, God-centered three verses in the Bible as far as I know:

For my name’s sake I defer my anger;
     for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
     that I may not cut you off.
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
     I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
     for how should my name be profaned?
     My glory I will not give to another.

There are at least five times where he says, “For my name’s sake.” Now, that way of talking is shocking. It was to me at the beginning, that God does these things for his own namesake. And that’s exactly what we find through the entire Bible.

Chosen, Created, and Rescued for His Glory

He chose his people for his glory. Ephesians 1:4–6 says that he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” That’s where all of this is going. He is aiming at the praise of his glorious grace.

He created us for that. Isaiah 43:6–7 says, “I created for my glory.” That’s why you exist. He called Israel for his glory. Isaiah 49:3 says, “You are my servant, in whom I will be glorified.” Jeremiah 13:11 says, “I made this people for me a name and a praise and a glory.”

God rescued Israel from Egypt for his glory. Psalm 106:7–8 says, “He saved them for his name’s sake that he might make known his mighty power.” So, he brought them out of Egypt for his own name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power. He raised up Pharaoh to show his power and glorify his name. The scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose, I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Romans 9:17).

God defeated Pharaoh at the Red Sea to show his glory: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host” (Exodus 14:4). Then it says, “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horseman” (Exodus 14:18). So all those events surrounding this most famous of all events in Egypt was about God getting glory for his great name.

God spared disobedient Israel in the wilderness for the glory of his name. Ezekiel 20:13–14 says:

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes but rejected my rules . . . But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.

God gave Israel victory in Canaan for the glory of his name. 2 Samuel 7:23 says:

And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name . . .

Kept, Saved, and Defended for His Glory

God did not cast away his people for the glory of his name. I love this story in 1 Samuel 12, where they had said, “We want a king to be like the nations. We don’t want you to be our unique king. We won’t be like them and have a nation.”

Your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king (1 Samuel 12:17) . . . Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord (1 Samuel 12:20) . . . For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake . . . (1 Samuel 12:22)

Now, one of the things I hope you’re hearing as I just rattle these texts off is that this is really good news for us. This is good news for us that God is acting for his name. Because acting for his name here is the reason he didn’t wipe them out. And that occurs over and over again. If God were to look only to us as the ground of our good treatment, we’d be gone. He’s looking somewhere else as the foundation for his grace, not here.

God saved Jerusalem from attack for the glory of his name. Second Kings 19:34 says, “I will defend this city to save it for my own name’s sake.” God restored Israel from exile for the glory of his name. Ezekiel 36:22–23 says:

Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name . . . I will vindicate the holiness of my great name . . . And the nations will know that I am the Lord . . .

That’s why I’m bringing you back from exile.

Christ’s Teaching and Mission for God’s Glory

Now, we’re in the New Testament, big shift. Jesus sought the glory of his Father in all that he did:

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

There’s no falsehood in him. The mark of Jesus’s truthfulness is that he did everything for the glory of his father.

Jesus told us to do good works so that God gets the glory. Matthew 5:16 says:

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Jesus warned that not seeking God’s glory makes faith impossible. This text really gripped me years ago. John 5:44 says:

How can you believe (meaning, you can’t), when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

If your whole life is built on horizontal people-approval, you can’t believe in Jesus. Do you see that? It’s amazing. How can you believe? Faith in Jesus is impossible for a heart that loves the glory of man more than the glory of God. There’s something about the nature of faith that won’t fit with that. It won’t work. When your heart is not interested in the glory of God, it’s not prioritizing the glory of God, you’re still blind to the glory of God. If you really love the praise of man and you fear the disapproval of man, that’s the controlling thing in your life, then that heart has to be changed. That’s what the new birth does.

Jesus said that he answers prayer so that God would be glorified. John 14:13 says:

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Jesus endured his final hours of suffering for God’s glory. John 12:27–28 says:

Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you . . . (John 17:1).

So, everything in Gethsemane, everything in the cross, it was all about, “O, God, vindicate your great glory in the salvation of sinners now.” When I said to you last night that Jonathan Edwards’s book, The End for Which God Created the World was in my top three influential books, this is why. The book is divided into two halves. The first half is just densely philosophical. It just kind of broke my brain trying to read it. The second half of the book is this. I’m just doing that. It’s just page after page after page after page of Bible verses. And when I was done, I just felt like, “Have I ever known him? Where have I been all my life in reading the Bible?”

Christ as a Propitiation for God’s Glory

God gave his Son to vindicate the glory of his righteousness. This is probably the most important paragraph in the Bible, if I had to vote. It’s not up to me, but if I had to vote I would say that. Romans 3:23–26 says:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . .

Sin is defined in terms of the glory of God. It means you’ve exchanged it. God offers his glory to you as the all-satisfying treasure of your life. You look at it and say, “No, thank you. I have my iPad, or my new iPhone 4s. That’s my new satisfaction.” That’s what sin is. Sin is the kind of feelings and thoughts and behaviors that come from a heart that has something making it more happy than the glory of God.” Paul continues:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness . . . (Romans 3:23–25).

Get this now. We are sinners. We deserve to perish. God in his great grace sent his Son to save us. But that’s not what this says is the main point. This says that he sent him and it was to show God’s righteousness. He is saying, “I’m going to vindicate, display, uphold, and magnify my righteousness in this event.” That’s what God says. “I’m going to do that for my righteousness.” Paul continues:

Because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins (Romans 3:25).

He needed to demonstrate his righteousness because he had made himself look unrighteous by skipping over sins. If there’s a judge sitting on a bench, and criminal after criminal comes to him, and he says, “You can go, you can go, you can go.” Everybody starts saying, “Whatever happened to justice?” This is exactly what we should be saying when we watch God say to David, after he rapes Bathsheba and kills Uriah, and Nathan comes and after David cries a little bit, “I’ve taken away your sin. You can go.” What? Surely, he will be deposed. Surely, he will be killed. Surely, he will be in prison. I mean, something’s going to happen besides the death of the illegitimate child.

No, he just goes on being king and he’s called a man after God’s own heart. What is that? That’s unrighteous. That’s what that is. God is unrighteous unless this paragraph is true, when there came a day when God said, “The time has come for me to show why passing over all those sins was not unrighteous. The time has come. And the way I will show that I am righteous is by pouring all of David’s murder and rape onto Jesus, and yours, and yours.” It works both ways, events before, events after, the cross at the middle, and all the sins that Jesus is passing over or dumping on the cross.

God is saying, “That’s how much I hate sin. That’s how much I punished sin. That’s how much I sweep nothing under the rug. Nothing, past or future.” If David was justified by faith alone and you’re justified by faith alone, there’s the reason right there that God is not an unjust judge. No sin escapes. It either gets paid at the cross or gets paid in hell. And the difference is, are you in Christ so that yours is being paid at the cross? Or are you outside Christ so that yours will have to be paid in your own skin?

It’s a really important paragraph and at the heart of it is the cross vindicates the glorious righteousness of God. When I said that the glory of God is important in defining sin, it’s because what happens at the cross is that God shows that his glory is not minimized. He doesn’t allow his glory to be trampled like we do every day. We trampled his glory every day. We don’t value the glory of God with all of our hearts. So, how in the world can he treat us so well? The sun is shining out there on Minneapolis. He made the sun rise on the evil and the good. How in the world can you do that towards people like us? For us, it’s because the cross daily has borne all of my shortcomings in honoring the glory of God and thus vindicates the value of the glory of God. What you should see at the cross is the horror of falling short of his glory and the infinite value of the glory of God.

Forgiven for the God’s Glory

God forgives our sins for his own name’s sake. Isaiah 43:25 says:

I, I am he
     who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
     and I will not remember your sins.

I wonder if you pray like that: “For your own sake, O, Lord, pardon my guilt.” Now, that’s a Psalm before the cross. Back to that question about people being saved before the cross and after the cross. Before the cross, they said things like, “Lord, if you were to look to me in my sin, if you were to count iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there’s forgiveness with you that you may be feared.” And they didn’t know ultimately how it was going to all work out. They just knew something had to be done, he was going to do it, and their sins were going to be covered. So they say, “For your sake, O, Lord, pardon my guilt.” We don’t say it merely like that. We say, “For Jesus’s sake, will you pardon my guilt?” “I blot out your transgressions for my own sake” becomes “for Jesus’s sake” now, which is why, parents, you should join me in this. Teach your kids to pray, and at the end, they say, “In Jesus’s name, amen.”

Take them out to lunch. Take this teenager out to lunch, and say to them, “Do you know the most important words in any prayer are the words ‘in the name of Jesus.’ Don’t throw it away.” It’s like saying bye. We need to teach them that. That is the most sweet, precious, powerful, important word they spoke, and they slur it over and throw it away because they’re not thinking. They’re not thinking. The only reason I have any right to be in the presence of God is Jesus. The only reason he’ll hear me is to Jesus. The only reason I have any claim on an answer to prayer is Jesus. And that’s why I’m closing my prayer in that way. It’s not because of me. It’s not my name, not my goodness, not my marriage, nothing here. It’s because of Jesus and his blood and righteousness that I’m asking for this. So “For his own sake” now has become “for Jesus’s sake.”

Welcomed for the Glory of God

Jesus receives us into fellowship for the glory of God. Romans 15:7 says:

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

Why did Christ welcome you into his fellowship? For the glory of God. Why should we welcome one another? For the glory of God.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Son of God. John 16:14 says:

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life is to make Jesus look really good and really satisfying. When you get up in the morning and you have any good feelings about Jesus, guess who’s at work in your life? The Holy Spirit.

God instructs us to do everything for his glory. First Corinthians 10:31 says:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

When we stand in line to get this phone, we should do it for the glory of God. This is a huge week for us. It’s a sweet 16 birthday. My daughter is turning 16. I had four sons. They didn’t give a rip about being 16 years old. The one reason they cared about was a driver’s license. Talitha has been planning her 16th birthday for a year. She set the table last night, a different plate at every setting, and she’s setting her own table. I promised her an iPhone years ago. She didn’t have a cell phone. All of her friends had cell phones at age 11. I said, “You get a cell phone at 16.” So she can have the best one, anyone she wants when she turns 16. She said, “I want the 4s on Friday.”

We were sitting there for two hours. It was a date. And this is what we talked about. And she tweeted yesterday, “Pray with me that I would use this (iPhone) for the glory of God.” So, I’m going to record that and say, “Do you remember when you said this right here?” I just mentioned that because this is real stuff we’re talking about. This isn’t some little spiritual side of your life somewhere. This is pizza and Diet Coke and iPhones and everything. Whatever you do, do all to make God look like your treasure, not the iPhone.

Service for God’s Glory

God tells us to serve in a way that will glorify him. First Peter 4:11 says:

Whoever speaks, [let him speak] as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

I paraphrase that as, “The giver gets the glory.”

I’m called to serve. I’m downstairs in the prayer room as we do this Saturday night and Sunday morning. Before preaching I’m down there. And for half an hour, we’re praying. We’re praying this: “God help me, help Chuck, help the worship leaders, everybody who’s got a part in the service and the people, to serve in strength that you supply, so that in everything, you get the glory.” The key to the Christian life is discovering the mystery of how to live by another person’s strength. It’s very strange. Be strong in the Lord and the strength that he supplies. Another person lives his life in you. How do you do that? You do it by faith by saying, “I go now not in reliance on my preparation.” The horse is made ready for the day of battle. Oh yes, all day Friday, the horse is made ready for the day of battle. But victory belongs to the Lord.

You say that yourself and you shift trust off of your preparation on to the Lord and the victory, so that as you’re charging into battle, you know one stray arrow and you’re dead. It doesn’t matter how much armor you have on. There’s a little hole here, or here, or here, or here, here. All God has to do is just let one go right there and you’re gone. The victory depends on the Lord in this hour, not on your preparation. You shift your faith onto that and you trust him. And then when you’re done, you thank him. In that way, God gets the glory. That’s why he said to do it.

Fruitfulness for the Glory of God

Jesus will fill us with fruits of righteousness for God’s glory. Philippians 1:11 says:

[It is my prayer that you be] filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

He’s asking God to do that. He is saying, “God, you put fruit in their life for your glory.”

All are under judgment for dishonoring God’s glory. Romans 1:22–23 says:

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images . . .

Herod was struck dead because he did not give God glory when he made that speech in Acts 12:

Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last (Acts 12:23).

How many of our politicians should be struck down daily? God in his mercy just passes over it — either, depending on whether they believe or not, filling up a reservoir of grace for them to be thankful for it, or a reservoir of fire that will be poured out on their head someday because they reject his patience. They’re not in hell today. If you’re not in hell, it’s a good day. Because everybody should be there, especially people who make speeches and don’t give God any glory. That’s what Herod did and that’s what most of our leaders do.

Christ’s Return for God’s Glory

Jesus is coming again to be glorified by us. So, now, we’re at the end of the age. Second Thessalonians 1:9–10 says:

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

So, if you ask, “Why is Jesus coming back?” He’s going back to be glorified and he’s coming back to be marveled at. Jesus’s ultimate aim for us is that we see and enjoy his glory. He says:

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24).

That’s his final prayer for us. Someday, we won’t see through a glass darkly anymore, but the clouds will be removed. The mirror is taken away and there he is face to face. Even in wrath, God’s aim is to make known the wealth of his glory:

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory . . . (Romans 9:22–23).

One of the effects of showing wrath towards those who deserve wrath is to make the vessels of mercy more tremblingly thankful because there, but for the grace of God, go we. God’s plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory:

For the earth will be filled
     with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
     as the waters cover the sea.

When Psalm 96 has declared his glory among the nations, it means that is underway. You have circles of acquaintances. That’s your job. Fill them up with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. They may not believe it yet. But your goal is to try to live with our hands and our feet and our mouth as to fill up those pockets of influence wherever we are, starting with our family, our friends, and our relationships, and then out from there we are just filling it up with a glorious God, telling people what they don’t know. They don’t know these things. Or we are just pointing to this beautiful day that the Lord has given us. Instead of saying, “Isn’t evolution amazing?” rather say, “God is awesome, isn’t he?” Of course, they may say, “God is awesome? It’s just nature. I mean, it just came up.” It came up because God told it to come up.

The Whole Cosmos for the Glory of God

I don’t know if you’ve ever read the rest of Psalm 19. It says:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
     and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
     and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
     whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
     and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
     which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
     and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy (Psalm 19:1–5).

Well, what should you see when you see the sun? He’s getting married today. Something like that is intended. God is really glad to do this. This son is a joy. And all the people in the world feel this. They know this. They don’t like dark, cloudy, dangerous days. They want bright days with a cool breeze. The sun is warm on the skin and the breeze is cool on the skin. That happens a few times in Minnesota, especially in October. And we just love it. It’s that awesome combination of the sun being bright and warm and the breeze being cool and clear.

I was walking across the bridge this morning and I got out my phone. I got out my old-fashioned iPhone 4. I went to the video and I said, “Lord, this is what I see every time in October.” I panned the cityscape just to remind myself and took a video of it because I was looking downtown and it was just crystal clear. I mean I spent three years in Pasadena. I know what not clear means. I lived in a soup bowl for three years in Pasadena. Ever since then I say, “Look I can see the buildings downtown. It’s just awesome. I can see the edges. They’re sharp. It’s just lucid like a diamond between me and downtown. And look at these trees.” They’re almost gone now, but a few of them still have these magnificent leaves. This is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber. He’s saying, “I’m getting married today. I can have sex tonight legally with the woman I’m going to spend my whole life with. This is just glorious.”

Everything for God’s Glory

Everything that happens will redound to God’s glory:

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:36).

And finally, in the New Jerusalem, the glory of God replaces the sun:

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 21:23).

That’s 32 texts I think. Therefore, God’s ultimate goal in creation and redemption is to uphold and display his glory for the enjoyment of his redeemed people, from every people, tribe, language, and nation. Or to say it another way, the thesis of this course: Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church; worship is. Valuing the glory of God is the ultimate goal. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall in their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Self-Exalting and Most Loving

Now, just a little note here. A lot of you’ve heard me raise this before because I’ve got in my file at home four or five testimonies of people who have really been offended and stumbled over these 32 texts, that God is so into his own glory, because it makes him sound like a megalomaniac or an egomaniac. Why isn’t he? Because unlike all other beings, God is infinitely valuable, infinitely beautiful, and infinitely satisfying. Therefore, when he upholds and displays his glory, he’s preserving for us and offering to us the greatest and longest pleasure. Psalm 16:11 says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Now, see, if I were to spend all of my life trying to get you to praise me and to see my glory, I wouldn’t be loving you. I would be distracting you from what can truly satisfy your soul, namely, God. But if God spends his whole life attracting you to himself, he’s loving you. Because he’s what can satisfy your soul fully and forever.

I just said this in Brazil and Australia, and I’ll say it to you. If you can offer me something better than full joy that lasts forever, I will stop being a Christian and follow what you offer. I feel very safe in saying that. And I don’t feel God is the least offended by my saying that. I’m saying it because he just told me “I’m full and I’m forever.” There isn’t anything fuller than full or longer than forever. So, I have no fear that you’re going to come to me as if you have something better for me. What are you going to offer me that’s better than full and forever? You can’t. So, I’m home. I’m finished looking. The search is over. This is full, this is forever, and the search is over.

The reason God is not a megalomaniac in constantly saying, “I’m great, John Piper, stop looking at your phone,” is because it is pure love. If I said that to you, “Stop looking at your phone, I’m great,” that wouldn’t be loving. I should be saying, “Stop looking at your phone, he’s great.” That’s love. God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the supreme act of love. You can’t copy him in this. So, what then is God’s love? Divine love labors to enthrall the beloved even at unfathomable cost, like the death of Jesus, with what is infinitely (full) and eternally (forever) satisfying, namely, God. This is what is ultimately good about the good news. Christ suffered once to bring us to God, to bring us to full and lasting satisfaction. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” That’s what Jesus died to give you.

This is the capstone of the good news that we take to the nations. God gave his Son to make it possible, through faith alone, for sinners to be forgiven, justified, and transformed, so that they could have full and lasting pleasure. All the work of the atonement is going there, namely, being with God at his right hand, where pleasures are full and forever. That’s why he died. That’s why he died for the nations. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

Our Motive in Missions

Here is a huge implication for motivation, these two expectations. First, “Let the peoples praise you, O, God.” Praise is seeking God’s glory, right? “Let the peoples praise you.” We want the peoples to praise God. And second is this one: “Let the nations be glad.” So, we want them to praise God and we want them to be glad. I’m arguing now, those two motivations are one. When the nations praise God, their gladness reaches its consummation. And when the nations are glad in him, he is seen to be praiseworthy. The nations are satisfied in God when they see and savor his glory. And God is most glorified in them when they are most satisfied in him.

There are huge implications there for motivation in missions. This includes the motivation of compassion: “I want you to be glad. I don’t want you to go to hell. I want you to be happy. I’m here for your happiness.” Charles Simeon used to go around knocking on the doors and his way of doing pastoral care in the community where they didn’t go to church would be to knock on doors and say, “Hello, I’m the new vicar at Holy Trinity church. I’d just like to know, are you happy? Are you happy?” We should ask, are the nations full and eternally happy?

The motivation of compassion for the good of hell-bound people and the motivation of passion for the glory of God are both pursued in the same way, namely, by seeking the gladness of the nations in all that God is for them in Jesus. The nations escape hell and they glorify God, satisfying our zeal for God’s glory with the same act, namely, being satisfied with all that God is for them in Christ.

Treasuring all that God is for them in Christ gives glory to God and rescues people from hell. If God-in-Christ becomes the gladness of the nations, then God is glorified and they are rescued. Our passion for God’s glory and our compassion for man’s good are both fulfilled. Therefore, we embrace the freedom and joy of a unified heart in our motivation to reach the nations. The pursuit of their joy in God and the pursuit of God’s glory in them are one.

Question and Answer

Going back to Romans 1, when people know God from general revelation, is the reason none of them responds because of their innate depravity?

The answer to that is yes. That is, we are all haters of the truth. We don’t love God and we’re guilty for it. We really are guilty. We know we’re guilty. Our conscience tells us. We don’t even live up to what our conscience requires, let alone what God requires. Therefore, on the judgment day, nobody will find fault with God’s justice. This is a rock bottom piece for me because I have many questions about many things. But one conviction I come away from the Bible with is that at the judgment day, when the sheep and the goats are separated, and some go into eternal punishment and others go into eternal life, at that moment, there will be exquisite justice being done. Nobody will say, “I don’t deserve to be here.” Nobody will ever be able to say that. Nobody will be mistreated. Because depravity is real and it’s really blameworthy.

Missions then and evangelism is the means by which God uses to overcome that depravity, which is exactly what Jesus said to Paul on the Damascus Road:

[I am sending you] to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (Acts 26:18).

He is saying, “I’m sending you to open their eyes. I’m sending you to deliver them from darkness. I’m sending you to free them from the power of Satan.” That’s what the word of God does. We’re going to go there in a few minutes. Talk about the power of the word to break the bondage of our human depravity. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Nothing else — not the moon, not the sun, not a storm cloud, and not any other religion. The gospel is the power of God that breaks this horrible darkness that is holding humanity. That’s why we have such good news.

Why are so many of us coming late to this reality of God being sovereign and doing all things for his glory? Why is Satan blinding our minds from this?

For me it was age 22. For others it is even later to even see, good grief, that really is there? It’s all over the place. How did I miss it? Or specifically, why does Satan seem to want to keep us from that and let us have others? Given the impact it’s had in my life, I would guess that that is the kind of thing he doesn’t want to happen. I mean, it is a massively humbling doctrine. It just puts you totally in your place. You’re not the center of the universe, Mr. Preacher. And so, get off your high horse and humble yourself under a massive hand of God that you may be exalted in due time. So, it’s hugely humbling.

I’ll say one more thing about it and then maybe we should take a break. I wrote a letter to one of my sons. This would have been 20 years ago maybe. He was off to college by himself. I felt like his letters were tipping me off, and I thought, “Is he going to church? Is he reading his Bible? Is he praying? Are things getting out of whack here? He’s a professing believer. He’s always been a believer.”

I wrote him a long letter. The analogy I used came to my mind because of this centrality. I said, when the sun is in place in the solar system, all the planets do exactly what they’re supposed to do. You have Mercury going where it belongs. You have Venus going where it belongs. You have Earth going where it belongs. You have Mars going where it belongs. And Pluto out there, even though they demoted him, is doing exactly what he’s supposed to do. They’re not bumping into each other. They’re providing whatever they’re supposed to do.

But if you take the sun with its massive centrality and gravitational glory out of the center, and you put education there, or wife, or health, or mission, or preaching, or money, these things are going to go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” And they start banging into each other because that’s what I’ve seen in his life. Things weren’t working anymore. There were problems, problems, problems. And that’s what you can expect. When you pull the gravitational function of this massive, big, central, glorious God out of where he belongs, things don’t go right. The world doesn’t make sense. Life doesn’t make sense. Marriage doesn’t work right. Kids don’t work right. Nothing seems to work right. Because the planets didn’t know what to do. They’re just all zooming around because the sun is missing.

I just said, “I think all God wants you to do is just make sure the sun is central, namely, God is supremely, blazingly, powerfully, gravitationally central in your life, and then all the money planets and all the marriage planets and all the education planets will just fly the way they’re supposed to fly.” That’s one of the reasons why Satan doesn’t want us to see this huge centrality.