TGC: John Piper

This year, I traveled to Orlando, Florida with thousands of other Pastors, Church Leaders, Theologians and Christians for the Gospel Coalition Conference. The conference was the brainchild of D.A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Tim Keller, pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan. I have several pages of notes, so bare with me as I try to get out reflections on my three days there.

The first sermon I am going to comment on is John Piper’s on Luke 1 and 2. Some background, John Piper has been someone long recommended to me. Honestly, I listened to a few of his sermons in the past and just didn’t love them. Something about his delivery seemed to be too much for me. However, seeing him live opened up a whole new perspective. Someone once said to me that sermons are not meant to be listened to by podcast. I have to agree, doing so rips the sermon completely out of its context, further, you have zero emotional context from the pastor. Watching John Piper demonstrated this in a way I would not have imagined. Seeing his eyes well up with tears over the fact that Luke, as Paul’s physician, would have seen the scars from the lashes on his back and then again when he prayed that TGC would be more than just talking, but rather an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was electric.

As for the content, Piper has this way of just honing in on a central theme that he is going to pound into your head. To paraphrase D.A. Carson, he keeps his finger in the text. The concept Piper focused on was the word “certainty” — asphaleia — meaning security (NT) or safety (OT). The idea seems to be that Luke is saying, “Theophilus, you’ve been taught many things, but I want you to know them differently — I want you to know them as locked down, secure unshakeable reality. Piper used the metaphor of a mountain versus a cloud. Luke wants Theophilus to know the truth of the gospel, but not as theoretical, or softly, but hard, rock-solid, unshakeable truth like knowing something the way you know a mountain, not a cloud, not ethereal.

Piper then went on to discuss Luke 1 and 2 and how they paralleled the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus. Perhaps Theophilus was one of those that only received John’s baptism in Acts 19. Perhaps that is why Luke continually demonstrates the reality that Christ was born of the Spirit, that he is not us, he is fully God and fully man. This is the rock-solid, unchangeable, mountain-like truth that Luke wants Theophilus to be aware of; Christ.

There is a certain point when you are watching John Piper live that you simply put down your pen and soak it in. It happened with Tim Keller as well. It’s at that point that the sermon becomes exhortation and your only response can be that of praise for the God of the universe.

It was so clear that the scriptures were real to Piper and that he would and has staked his life on that fact. If the scriptures are real, then they must invariably have an emotional impact on us. One cannot read scripture and remain unaffected, it demands a response. Piper’s delivery was exactly that, an emotional outpouring of truth.

I will be picking up Desiring God after a long avoidance of it.