Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry

by John Piper

Tell them with joy and passion and power that they can’t give anything for it. It’s free. This is what Christ came to do: fulfill a righteousness and die a death that would remove all our sins and become for us a perfect righteousness.

Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. 1 Peter 3:18

The gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4

Our job is to tilt the world, by the power of the Spirit and the Word, so that the tide rolls in again.

The gospel is a plan

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:3–4)

In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Eph. 1:4–5)

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:3–4)

If there was no historical Jesus, and if He did not die and rise from the dead, there would be no gospel.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” (Gal. 3:13)

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. (Rom. 5:19)

All this—wrath absorbed, forgiveness bought, righteousness wrought, death conquered, and eternal life won—all this was achieved in history by Jesus before any of us lived or believed.

The gospel is a free offer:

By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8–9)

I return to my question: What is the highest and best and final good in the good news? Is it justification by faith? Is it forgiveness of sins? Is it the removal of the wrath of God? Is it redemption from guilt and liberation from slavery to sin? Is it salvation from hell? Is it entrance into heaven? Is it eternal life? Is it deliverance from all pain and sickness and conflict?

Verses 4 and 6 of 2 Corinthians 4 tell us: We must see “the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” That is, we must see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

There it is. The ultimate end of the gospel is coming home to God. Knowing Him. Seeing him unsullied with our own sin. Being with Him. Being conformed to Him. Enjoying Him with the capacities for joy that heaven alone will give. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).

Bad motives ruin good acts. “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3).

We must labor to see that they do good things from God-exalting motives—lest they find in the end that their sacrifices were for nothing.

Good deeds and religious acts are the installment payments we make on the unending debt we owe God.

Instead He lures us into obedience with irresistibly desirable promises of enablement (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:27; Matt. 19:26; Rom. 6:14; 1 Cor. 1:8–9; Gal. 5:22; Phil. 2:13; 4:13; 1 Thess. 3:12; Heb. 13:21) and divine reward (Luke 9:24; 10:28; 12:33; 16:9, 25; 10:35–36; Heb. 11:24–26; 12:2; 13:5–6).2

all our Christian labor for Him is a gift from Him (Rom. 11:35–36; 15:18) and therefore cannot be conceived as payment of a debt.

Let us teach people that is exactly where God wants us to be through all eternity, going ever deeper in debt to grace.

we should at least show them the lurking dangers and describe how gratitude can motivate obedience without succumbing to a debtor’s mentality.

We do not respond with gratitude to a person who does us a favor unintentionally.

Yes! Because gratitude is not merely a response to a benefit received; it is a response to someone’s goodwill toward us.

Gratitude is a species of joy which arises in your heart in response to the goodwill of someone who does or tries to do you a favor.

In a way that honors the nature and aim of God’s goodwill and does not contradict it.

Any attempt to express a gratitude by paying God back would contradict the nature of His gift as free and gracious.

Any attempt to turn from being a beneficiary of God in order to become God’s benefactors would remove the stumbling block of the cross where my debt was so fully paid that I am forever humbled to the status of a receiver, not a giver.

Good deeds do not pay back grace; they borrow more grace.

gratitude functions well as a motive only as it gives rise to faith.

“faith works through love” (Gal. 5:6),

So Paul would have us beware of the debtor’s ethic and lead our people into the life-changing power of ever-dependent joy.

The Bible is concerned to call us back from idolatry to serve the true and living God (1 Thess. 1:9). But it is also concerned to keep us from serving the true God in the wrong way.

Paul warns against any view of God which makes Him the beneficiary of our beneficence.

Our God will not be put in the position of an employer who must depend on others to make his business go. Instead He magnifies His all-sufficiency by doing the work Himself.

God is not looking for people to work for Him but people who let Him work mightily in and through them:

“Cast all your anxieties on him” (1 Pet. 5:7 RSV).

The Sermon on the Mount is our doctor’s medical advice, not our employer’s job description.

Religious “flesh” always wants to work for God. But “if you live according to the flesh you will die” (Rom. 8:13).

That is why our very lives hang on not working for God, both in justification and sanctification.

When we compare our relationship with God to the relationship between servant and master, the comparison is not perfect.

“Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.”

Money exerts a certain control over us because it seems to hold out so much promise of happiness. It whispers with great force, “Think and act so as to get into a position to enjoy my benefits.” This may include stealing, borrowing, or working.

The only right way to serve God is in a way that reserves for Him all the glory. “Whoever serves [must do it] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Pet. 4:11).

Let us spread the gospel far and wide and spend ourselves for the sake of the elect but never venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought in us (Rom. 15:18). In all our serving may God be the giver, and may God get the glory. Until the people understand this, brothers, tell them not to serve God!

Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who died in 1804, was the most powerful exponent of the notion that the moral value of an act decreases as we aim to derive any benefit from it.

Kant loves a disinterested giver. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). Disinterested performance of duty displeases God.

Note: Don’t do good deeds for worldly advantage; but do them for spiritual, heavenly benefits.