This week's sermon: "Abortion and the Narrow Way That Leads to Life"
The order is all-important. Divine acceptance, then radical love.
First, in Jesus, we have a Father in heaven—a Father much better than the best father this world has ever produced. In Jesus, he has adopted us fully into his family. He cares about our every need. He does unto us only better than we can desire for ourselves.
Then, to us he has accepted fully, by faith alone in his Son, apart from any of our doing, he summons us to love others in the radical way of the golden rule. Which calls for two acts of imagination, one act of self-renunciation, and one act of joyful generosity. We don’t love people in order to get ourselves adopted, but we love people because we are adopted.
As the Father lavishly cares for us, he has freed us to lavishly care for others—to care about all suffering in this life, and especially the eternal suffering to come for those outside of Christ.
Suffering in this world is terrible and limited, but suffering in the next world is terrible and eternal. Love sees it that way, not shutting its eyes to this world or that one.
Love reckons with the reality of suffering here, and the worse reality of suffering to come. It refuses to pick between one or the other.
Note: We have added a new feature to John Piper's sermon manuscripts. Video excerpts of the sermon are now inserted throughout the manuscript to make the content more accessible.
