Excerpt from Present Your Bodies As a Living Sacrifice to God by John Piper
Based on Romans 12:1-2
"We must never let the Christian life drift into a mere social agenda. I use the word “mere” carefully, because if God is left out, our mercy will be mere social agenda. We do no one good in the end if we are not worshipping and leading them to worship in the acts of mercy that we do. If our good deeds are not expressing the worth of God, then our deeds are not worship, and in the end will not be merciful. Making people comfortable or helping them feel good on the way to everlasting punishment, without the hope and the design that they see Christ in your good deeds, is not mercy. Mercy must aim to make much of Christ. For no one is saved who doesn't meet and make much of Christ. And not to care about saving is not merciful.
Therefore, it is absolutely essential that Paul put worship before mercy and that he define the Christian life as worshipful before he defines it as merciful. Or to put it more carefully, Paul defines the Christian life as worship so that it can be merciful. If we are not worshipping in our behavior—that is, if we are not making much of God's mercy in Christ in and along side our behavior—we are not giving people what they need most. And that is not merciful. A merciful lifestyle depends on a worshipful lifestyle. So before Paul defines Christian living as merciful, he defines it as worshipful. "
2 comments:
Yes! This is exactly the point I have had in my heart all these years, and that I have tried to clumsily explain, but which John Piper here succinctly states. I want my good deeds to "count" for something - to have an influence in the right direction. I don't want to relieve suffering simply so people can have less suffering in their lives, or so they can live a life more like mine, or so they will think what a fine person I am... I want them to know it is because of our Great God that we do all that we do, and before Whom they also should bow down. -Paul
And I think that is why in our summer series we heard John Piper make the point that "you cannot be a loving person unless you pursue your joy in God" and he defined love as "the overflow of abundant joy in God that meets the needs of others."
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