The Demands of Jesus #2

In his introduction to What Jesus Demands of the World, John Piper lays out a couple of key points that I find tremendously encouraging. In this post I simply want to reiterate some of Piper's introductory remarks, because they're foundational to understanding where he is going in this book.

Jesus' final instructions to the disciples was that they should teach people throughout the world to observe all his commands.

I'm used to reminding myself and others that Christianity is not primarily about behavior. Not primarily about what we do, but about what God has done in Christ. And yet, here is Christ giving what we should assume to be his most important instruction to his disciples. "Teach people to observe all my commands."

This morning I read the following statement over at Nate's blog: "...I don't believe that Jesus' primary revelation is that of moral living. Taken on its own, this assumption is exactly what kills Christianity."

I agree, but then how do I deal with this final instruction of Jesus? And as a disciple, how do I obey that instruction, teaching people to observe Jesus' commands, without falling into the very death-trap that Nate mentions?

Here's what John Piper says:

When a rich man could not bring himself to let go of his riches and follow him, Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.... With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." [Mark 10:25-27]

Therefore, the person who sets himself to obey Jesus' final commission--for example, to teach a rich man to observe the command to "renounce all that he has"--attempts the impossible. But Jesus said it was not impossible. (p.17-18)

Piper goes on to say that his challenge in writing the book--and it is ours in every aspect of following Jesus--is in discerning "God's way of making impossible obedience possible."

And his way of making it possible, it seems, has everything to do with Jesus. Who he is, and what he did. To misunderstand Jesus, his person and work, is to misunderstand God, what God desires, and the means God has provided to make that possible. Piper says:

Therefore, my aim has been to probe the meaning and the motivation of Jesus' commands in connection with his person and work. (p. 19)

After a two page sketch of the person and work of Jesus (who he was and what he did), Piper adds this:

The obedience [Jesus] demands is the fruit of his redeeming work and the display of his personal glory. This is why he came--to create a people who glorify his gracious reign by bearing the fruit of his kingdom.... In other words, the Son of Man came to save people from their suicidal love affair with possessions (and every other idol) and to lead them into a kind of impossible obedience that displays the infinite worth of Jesus.

To obey Jesus (observing his commands), to bear fruit, to love our neighbors, to display the beauty of God with our lives, all these things are like trying to squeeze ourselves through the eye of a needle. They are impossible things. But the overarching miracle of God's plan for his wayward creation is that he makes his impossible demands possible.