Jesus’ Demands: Believe (#4)

~ Bob Hayton

Click to orderNote: these are devotional posts based on John Piper’s new book What Jesus Demands from the World.

Demand #4 — Believe

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God….Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:16-18, 36)

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me (John 14:1)

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. (John 14:11)

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. (John 12:36a)

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” (John 20:27)

Why must we believe?

We are to believe in Jesus, because only he can rescue us. Only he can save us from the danger of perishing under God’s wrath forever in Hell. Let me quote Piper’s illustration here.

Jesus is the only one who can save us from this danger….It is as though a fireman finds you almost unconscious in a burning building that is about to collapse, throws his insulated tarp over you, picks you up, and says, “Hold still as I carry you. Don’t move. Don’t try to help me. I will get you out. You must let me do it. Trust me.”

Just like the fireman, Jesus has done everything to save us. He does not demand “heroic acts of penance but [rather] that we trust him.” Jesus has purchased us through his Cross-work on our behalf. And on that basis He calls us to believe in Him.

What is it to believe?

There are three indispensable elements to belief. Saving faith includes all three points.

  1. We must believe that the facts about Jesus and the Gospel are true. (Jn. 20:27)
  2. We must trust Jesus as a “living person for who he really is”. We need to believe “in him”. (Jn. 14:1)
  3. We must be satisfied with All God is for us in Jesus. (Jn. 6:35)

The “1-2-3 repeat after me” approach to evangelism hones in on the first aspect of belief. They try to get people to pray a quick prayer upon assenting to a short Gospel fact list. But saving faith is much more than that.

We must trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior. But not merely our Lord and Savior, but as our Supreme Treasure. Piper loses people at this point, but regardless God’s Word clearly teaches that saving faith is the kind of faith that savors Jesus and enjoys Him. Let me showcase the Scriptural proof that Piper offers here.

  • “Jesus offers himself to us not merely as a rescuer to be trusted but as living water to be drunk….” And as a Shepherd (Matt. 26:31), Bridegroom (Matt. 9:15), Treasure (Matt. 13:44), King (John 18:36), and more.
  • John 6:35 shows the relationship between belief and drinking or coming to Jesus: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst“. To believe is to drink deeply from the “wells of salvation” (Is. 12:3).

So Piper rightly argues that believing that water gives life doesn’t cut it. You must drink the water. “Jesus gives life by being trusted. Trusting Jesus as water, therefore, means drinking the water.” It means “receiving” Jesus and all the “life-giving grace of God that comes to us in him”.

You don’t have to receive a fireman, just his aid. Jesus is not like that:

[The fireman] doesn’t ask you to believe in him for all that he is, or to receive him, or to savor his life. But Jesus does. He is so much more than a rescuer. Therefore, believing in him is more than trusting in his rescue skills.

In thinking through these thoughts, I couldn’t help but wondering how much I really am presently savoring Christ. I mean, most of my readers, like myself, have already believed. But are we truly continuing to believe? Is Jesus giving us true life? Are we entranced with the glory of Jesus as so much MORE than merely our Delivering Fireman? Are we daily growing in our love for and appreciation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Is He truly our Supreme Treasure?

We’ll consider more along this line of thinking in the next post on Demand #5, Love.

—See all posts on, the Demands of Jesus

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Bob Spots More

~ fundyreformed ~ 3 Comments

 

I have a few more good reads for you. It seems that everytime I do a Bobspotted Blogroll post, that I forget something or else I find a great new read hours after I post. I know you all are capable of browsing blogs on your own, but I like to collect things here for the benefit of any who haven’t read these jewels. And these are all so good I just had to share….

 

  • Jesus’ Appearance to Jacob at Peniel — a phenomenal post elaborating on the implications of viewing the one Jacob fought with at Peniel as Jesus. I don’t keep up on Nathan Pitchford’s articles (he writes here and at  Monergism.Com‘s blog Reformation Theology)  like I want to; so while I was catching up, I came across this great article. It discusses the typology surrounding Jacob’s life. If you have ever had a hard time appreciating all the various plots in Jacob’s life, this post will give them a great significance. Once again the redemptive historical hermeneutical approach succeeds in giving us great food for our souls!
  • Type A, B, or C? [intro] & [part 2] — Joel Tetreau (who contributes to NeoFundamentalist) is posting a series on his taxonomy of Fundamentalism over at Sharper Iron. He groups fundamentalists into essentially three categories: A, B, or C. I think his approach is helpful and will contribute toward a greater understanding of our differences and similarities. Hopefully this won’t divide fundamentalism more deeply, but rather serve to facilitate more unity! This is Joel’s goal too, I believe.
  • John Piper on Rom. 16:17 — This is worth the read, or better yet listen to the sermon here. Piper discusses the “unity boys” and the “purity boys” and calls for a balanced approach which avoids the perils of hyper fundamentalism on one hand and loosey-goosey evangelicalism on the other. And he gives a great exegesis of this important verse.
  • Douglas Wilson responds to the  popular new book  Letter to  a Christian Nation — Doug writes starts his own series of letters responding to Sam Harris with this post (HT: Justin Taylor). Douglas Wilson  is always worth reading.

Wonderful Maker, Wonderful Song

~ fundyreformed ~ 3 Comments


By now, most of my regular readers know that I am still catching my breath (or wringing my wrist) from the long and drawn out music debate we had here, occasioned by the fundamentalist blogosphere’s rumblings over John Piper’s use of a Christian rap musician in a worship service. Well in the midst of that whole debate, I was extremely blessed by none other than a CCM style Christian song.

I had picked up my sister’s  Carried Me, worship album by Jeremy Camp,  and was listening to it over and over again. And one particular song struck me. The song “Wonderful Maker” really did produce in me a greater love for Christ and moments of genuine and intense worship—the genuine kind of fruit that I mentioned in my debate (and which you would have read about if you stuck it out all the way to the end!) And then, in worship this past Sunday morning, we sang this song! Let me share the song, and then direct you to some links where you can sample the song.

 

Wonderful Maker

Verse:
You spread out the skies over empty space
Said, “Let there be light”
To a dark and formless world Your light was born

You spread out Your arms over empty hearts
Said, “Let there be light”
To a dark and hopeless world Your Son was born

Bridge:
You made the world and saw that it was good
You sent Your only Son, for You are good

Chorus:
What a wonderful Maker
What a wonderful Savior
How majestic Your whispers
And how humble Your love
With a strength like no other
And the heart of a Father
How majestiv Your whispers
What a wonderful God

Bridge:
No eyes has fully seen how beautiful the Cross
And we have only heard that faintest whispers of how great You are

Words and Music by Chris Tomlin & Matt Redman
 © 2002 WorshipTogether.Com Songs / SixSteps Music / ThankYou Music (ASCAP) admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing

 

Click to order The accompaniment of this song is appropriately thoughtful and worshipful. And the chorus becomes a glad song of praise. The music lifts your song up as the chords crescendo. Regardless of what might be said of other songs, this one definitely majors on communicating the message of the song. (I threw this line in on account of the recent debate!)

To hear a sample music clip of this song, click here But I did find a YouTube video clip that has the entire song on it. Now the picture is really dark and grainy, and is of some kind of “expressive” worship dance. But you can ignore the picture and just enjoy the whole song (of course, if you have broadband that will be easier to do). If you like the song, you can buy just the clip here, or you can order the CD by clicking on the picture of the CD’s cover above.

You can also click here to see the chord chart for this song, and here to see a preview of the musical score (you can also purchase the score if you want). Lastly, to learn more about Jeremy Camp as well as the authors of the song, Christ Tomlin and Matt Redman (2 of the best worship song writers today), click on the following links: JeremyCamp.Com, ChrisTomlin.Com, & MattRedman.Com.

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Libraries, Fingertips, Books, and Ears

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

This is a post about books. As you  know, I love them. And so do most bloggers,  probably. Does anyone else like libraries? Particlularly ones with a great  Biblical section?

Well, how  would you like to have your own theological library at your finger tips?      Now you can! Let me introduce to you  The Bible Centre  (HT: Boanerges). Yes, that’s centre with an “re” instead of “er”. Its British, but we won’t hold that against them.

The Bible Centre is an online library of all things theological. They have as many commentaries as you could want, almost. They  nearly have the entire WORD Biblical Commentary set for the NT available. And of course they have Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, and all the gang.    While they also provide the Pulpit Commentary, they provide others you may not have heard of too. They showcase 6 volumes of Jonathan Edwards’ works, along with a dozen or so Systematic Theologies. And they have everything a Greek or Hebrew Scholar would need. Kittel’s finds its place there and they have a wide array of text critical helps as well (did anybody say Metzger?). All in all, they have hundreds, let me repeat, hundreds, of reference and other works available for your now happy fingertips to peruse!

Better yet,  it is all free from now through Jan. 1! At that time, they will ask you to pay a $20 yearly fee if you can afford it, if not they have reduced rates or would even offer the service free. For Bible colleges and seminaries a flat $50 yearly fee covers all the instructors and students alike! Check out their fee explanation for more detail.

Update: the Bible Centre is not obeying copyright laws and has refused to comply with numerous requests from Christian publishers and others. I think the site was taken down, if not: please do not support or use such a site.

Talking about commentaries, I recently discovered that Monergism.com offers the  best one stop source of online commentaries (outside of the Bible Centre) available on the web—at least I think it is.    They link to all of John  Calvin’s commentaries, as well as the commentaries of Albert Barnes, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, John Gill, Keil & Delitzch, Matthew Poole, and  Warren Wiersbe to name just a few. They also have a listing of all of John Piper’s sermons by sermon text. And they link to the online Pulpit Commentary, some of John MacArthur’s NT  commentaries online and many, many other resources. They also have the excellent Commentary on Revelation by Vern Poythress, that I am currently reading, available on line. So be sure to bookmark their Commentaries page!

Sonic Faith I’ve covered the “libraries”, “books”, and “fingertips” from the title of this post, but what about the ears? I figured that this kind of a hodge podge post about books would be a good place to mention another resource I have discovered. Sonic Faith offers downloadable Christian Audio books. These are audio books for your iPod. Now I don’t have an ipod, but I can still listen to mp3s on my computer, and you can too, even if you don’t know it!

Sonic Faith has a fairly good selection of Christian books—some of the more recent and more widespread “bookstore” variety books, as well as some Bibles. Hey, they even carry the ESV! I also  like the fact that it has Ted Dekker’s and Randy Alcorn’s fiction books. I haven’t read Ted yet, but Alcorn’s fiction is out of this world good—and also spiritually substantial.

Sonic Faith also has a yearly membership deal whereby you can save even more off the price of books by getting them as downloadable digital files. The site is worth checking out and very easy to use. It also looks like they will be including free audio books  sometime soon. So if you like audio books, let your next one come from a Christian audio book company.

Well, that’s it for now. I need to go and read some books!

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Bobspotted Blogroll: November 11, 2006

~ fundyreformed


Must Read Devotional

  • Nathan Pitchford recently posted “Confessions and Pleas”, a puritan-like prayer that will bless and encourage (as well as challenge) your soul.

On Psalter-Only Worship

  • Nathan has also given us a great post on “The Regulative Principle and Psalter-Only Worship”. It is a short read, yet it utterly devastates that position (in a loving way, mind you). I thought some may be interested in this, as music has been much on the mind around here lately!

On Discernment

Toward a Taxonomy of Fundamentalism

  • Joel Tretreau also of Neo Fundamentalist, has posted the introduction to what will surely prove to be a thought provoking series of posts entitled “Three Lines in the Sand”. In this article, Joel seeks to provide a taxonomy of fundamentalism. He labels some Type A, others Type B, and the conservative evangelical crowd (like Piper and MacArthur) get a Type C rating.
  • It is extremely difficult to define fundamentalism, as my own attempt at a taxonomy proves! But I think Joel’s approach will prove to more than descriptive. It will be very helpful and hopefully serve to enable a greater unity among all of us who prize the fundamentals of the faith so dearly.

On 4 Point Calvinism

  • If you are interested in the difference between 4 point and 5 point Calvinism, check out this post by Reformation Theology blog. The discussion can be a bit deep at times, but you may find it helpful in thinking through that whole issue.