Passion for the Supremacy of God

John Piper:  Passion for the Supremacy of God, Part 1
[January 2, 1997]

Reasons For Coming to Passion '97

Reason #1

I want to begin by telling you some of the reasons that I'm here. One of the great advantages of being in a local church as a pastor for 16-17 years is that over the months and years the vision of the church and the vision of the pastor become one. About a year ago we produced a vision statement that goes like this:

We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

I think I can say without any hesitation that that's my life mission as well as the mission of Bethlehem Baptist church. So when I got an invitation, read about this conference, saw the word "passion," and saw the truth behind Isaiah 26:8 — "We wait for you; your name and your renown is the desire of our soul" — I was hooked.

I want to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all of you and all the peoples of this world. So that is reason number one for why I'm here.

Reason #2

Reason number two is that I want to be a little match set to the kindling of your joy. I want you to leave from this place thrilled and happy in God.

Reason #3

And the third reason is I want you to see from Scripture that both reason one and reason two are the same reason. They are one. That is, to spread a passion for the supremacy of God and to be happy in God are virtually identical. Because God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.

There is the sentence that I'll come back to again and again: God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. So the songs that we've been singing and the thirst we've been expressing are ways of giving glory to God. Because the more we find our satisfaction in him, the more we drink deeply from him and eat at the banquet table which is him, the more his worth and his all-sufficiency is magnified. So there's no competition — and this is the marvel, this is the gospel to me, that I discovered in '68, '69 and '70 as God was doing a work in my life. There's no competition between God's passion to be glorified and your passion to be satisfied, because they are one.

There's another way to say this third reason for why I'm here: I'm here to torch a glacier. I have in my mind a picture. It came out of Matthew 24. In Matthew 24:12, looking at the end of the age, Jesus says: "Lawlessness will be multiplied and the love of many will grow cold." I'm scared to death of growing cold. I hate the thought that my love for God or my love for people would one day dry up or freeze up. Yet Jesus says "It's coming!" It's coming like a glacier across the world. So part of my expectation for the last days is that lawlessness will be multiplied and that the love of many will grow cold. Now that could be a very bleak description of the last days.

But if you keep reading in Matthew 24, down a verse to 13, it says, "But those who endure to the end will be saved" — so somebody is going to endure. And the next verse says, "And this gospel of the kingdom" — paraphrase that "this gospel of spreading a passion for the supremacy of King Jesus — "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." Now put verse 12 alongside verse 14 and see if you feel the tension. "Lawlessness will be multiplied and the love of many will grow cold," but "this gospel of the kingdom" — of Christ's sovereign rule — "will spread to all the nations and then the end will come."

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