Piper's Notes

September 18, 1983

Bethlehem Baptist Church

John Piper, Pastor

CONVERSION TO CHRIST: THE MAKING OF A CHRISTIAN HEDONIST

(Matthew 13:44-46 ESV)

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and

covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on

finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Last week we saw that the infinite and overflowing happiness of God is the foundation of

Christian Hedonism. God is happy because he takes perfect pleasure in the excellence

of his own glory, especially as it is reflected in his divine Son. God is happy because he

is sovereign and therefore can overcome every obstacle to his joy. And God's happiness

is the foundation of Christian Hedonism because it spills over in mercy to us. When God

calls men and women to himself it is not out of a deficiency that he needs to fill but out

of fullness that he loves to share. We concluded last week by saying that not everyone

has an eternal share in God's joy, because there is a condition that must be met. The

condition is that we obey the command: Delight yourself in the Lord (Ps. 37:4). But

many people take more delight in riches and revenge and recreation than they do in

God. And so they have no share in God's saving mercy; they are lost. What they need

is conversion to Christ -- which is nothing more than the making of a Christian Hedonist.

That's what I want to talk about this morning.

Someone may ask, "If our aim is conversion, why can't we just say, 'Believe on

the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved'?

Why bring in this new terminology of Christian Hedonism." It's a good question. Here's

my answer. We live in a superficially Christianized society where thousands of lost

people think they do believe in Jesus. In most of my witnessing to unbelievers and

nominal Christians, the command "Believe in Jesus and you shall be saved," is virtually

meaningless. Drunks on the street say they do. Unmarried couples sleeping together

say they do. Elderly people who haven't sought worship or fellowship for forty years say

they do. Every stripe of world-loving church attendees say they do. My responsibility as

a preacher of the gospel and a teacher of the church is not just to repeat precious

Biblical sentences, but to speak the truth of those sentences in a way that will prick the

conscience of the hearer and help you feel your need for Christ. What I am trying to do

is take a neglected and essential teaching of Scripture and make it as pointed as I can

in the hope that some hearts will be stabbed broad awake. And therefore I say, when a

person is converted to Jesus Christ that person is made into a Christian Hedonist.

Unless a man be born again into a Christian Hedonist he cannot see the Kingdom of

God. That's what I want to try to show from Scripture.

Before we can focus on conversion we need to review the great truths about

reality that make conversion necessary.

The first truth we have to face as human beings is that God is our Creator to whom we

owe heartfelt gratitude for all we have. The best evidence for this is in your own heart and

life. Why is it that the judicial sentiment of your own heart automatically passes

judgment on a person who snubs you when you have done him a favor? We

automatically hold a person guilty who fails to have any gratitude to someone who has

shown him great kindness. Why? You know it would be a totally unsatisfying answer to

say: I feel that way merely because I got spanked as a child for not saying thank you.

We don't let people off the hook that easily. The quickness with which our hearts judge

inconsiderate people bears witness to our true belief: ingrates are guilty!

The real reason for why our hearts respond this way is that we are created in God's

image. Your judicial sentiment which automatically holds me guilty if I ignore you after

you've saved my child from drowning, is the voice of God in you. An aspect of the image

of God in you is that you involuntarily hold people accountable for ingratitude. Therefore,

you know in your heart that there is a God to whom we owe heartfelt gratitude. It would

be utterly hypocritical to think that God expects any less gratitude for his gifts than you

do for yours. "O, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endures forever"

(Ps. 107:1). Therefore, if you will simply own up to the moral standards which you

automatically make on your neighbor, you will not be able to escape the fact that the

law of God is written on your heart and it says: a creature owes his Creator the affection

of gratitude in proportion to his dependence and God's goodness.

And that leads to the second great truth which human beings must face: we have not

felt, nor do we now, nor will we feel tomorrow the depth and intensity and consistency of

gratitude to God which we owe him as our Creator. And we do not even need the Bible

to tell us that we are guilty. We know that we have not rendered to God what we

demand for ourselves from our neighbor. We know that the judicial sentiment in our heart

which holds other people guilty for ingratitude, also bears vivid witness that God holds us

guilty for our astonishing ingratitude to him. And if we suppress this witness in our own

hearts, the Scriptures make it plain. Romans 1:18-21:

the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of

men who by their wickedness suppress the truth …. For although they knew God they

did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile in their

thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.

When every human being stands before God to give an account of his life, God will not

have to use one sentence of Scripture to show people their guilt and fitness for

condemnation. He will simply ask them three questions:

1) Was it not clear enough in nature that everything you had was a gift, that as my

creature you were dependent on me for life and breath and everything?

2) Did not the judicial sentiment in your own heart always hold other people guilty

when they lacked the gratitude they should have had in response to a great kindness?

3) Has your life been filled with the joy of gratitude toward me in proportion to my

kindness to you? The case is closed.

And so the third great truth we have to face is that the wrath of God is upon us because

of our ingratitude. Our own judicial sentiment requires that the moral accounts of the

universe be settled. We do not allow indignities against our own character to be swept

under the rug. How much less God! The righteousness of God means that he must

uphold the worth of his glory. When we, by our ingratitude, belittle the worth of God's

glory the accounts of justice must be settled. A man is worth more than a cat. And

therefore you can go to jail for defaming a man's character, but nobody has ever been

convicted of libel against a cat. And God is worth more than a man -- infinitely more --

and therefore the defamation of his character through manifold marks of our ingratitude

brings down a sentence of eternal destruction. The wages of sin is (eternal) death (Rom.

6:23).

The most terrifying news in the world is that we have fallen under the condemnation of

our Creator and that he is bound by his own righteous character to preserve the worth of

his glory by pouring out his wrath on the sin of our ingratitude. But there is a fourth great

truth that no one can ever learn from nature or from their own consciences, a truth which

has to be told to neighbors and preached in churches and carried by missionaries:

namely, the good news that God has decreed a way to satisfy the demands of his

righteousness without condemning the whole human race. He has taken it upon himself

apart from any merit in us to accomplish our salvation. The wisdom of God has ordained

a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the

righteousness of God. And what is this wisdom?

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the gentiles,

but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the

wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:23,24).

Jesus Christ, the Son of God crucified, is the Wisdom of God, by which the love of God

can save sinners from the wrath of God and all the while uphold and demonstrate the

righteousness of God.

Romans 3:25,26, God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received

by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he

had passed over our former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is

righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.

How can God exonerate sinners who have been ungrateful for his glory and yet

demonstrate his righteous and unswerving commitment to his glory?

Answer:

God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the

righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

Sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin he condemned sin in

the flesh (Rom. 8:3).

Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24).

He died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God (1

Peter 3:18).

If the most terrifying news in the world is that we have fallen under the judicial

condemnation of our Creator and that he is bound by his own righteous character to

preserve the worth of his glory by pouring out his wrath on the sin of our ingratitude, then

the best news in all the world (the gospel!) is that God was willing to sentence his own

Son in our place (Gal. 3:13) and thus demonstrate his righteous allegiance to his own

glory and still save sinners like you and me!

But not all sinners. Everybody is not saved from God's wrath just because Christ died for

sinners. And this is the fifth great truth we need to hear: there is a condition you have to

meet in order to be saved. And I want to try to show as my last point that becoming a

Christian Hedonist is an essential part of that condition.

"What must I do to be saved?" is probably the most important question any

human can ask.

Let's look for a moment at the different ways God answers that question in his Word.

The answer in Acts 16:31 is "Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." The

answer in John 1:12 is that we must receive Christ: "To all who received him … he gave

power to become children of God." The answer in Acts 3:19 is, Repent! That is, turn

away from sin. "Repent therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out." The

answer in Hebrews 5:9 is obedience to Christ. "Jesus became the source of eternal

salvation to all who obey him." Jesus himself answered the question in a variety of ways.

For example, he said in Matthew 18:3 that childlikeness is the condition for salvation:

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the

kingdom of heaven.

In Mark 8:34,35 the condition is self-denial, the willingness to lose your earthly life for

Christ:

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and

follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my

sake and the gospel's will save it.

In Matthew 10:37 Jesus says the condition is loving him more than anyone else:

He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves

son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (See 1 Cor. 16:22; 2 Tim. 4:8).

And in Luke 14:33 the condition for salvation is that we be free from the love of our

possessions: "Whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

These are some of the conditions that the New Testament says we must meet in order

to benefit from the death of Christ and be saved. We must believe on him, receive him,

turn from our sin, obey him, humble ourselves like little children, and love him more than

we love our family, our possessions or our own life. This is what it means to be

converted to Christ. And this alone is the way of life everlasting.

But what is it that holds all these conditions together? What unites them? What

one thing impels a person to do them? I think the answer is given in the little parable of

Matthew 13:44:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and

covered up; then from his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

This parable describes how a person is converted and brought into the kingdom of

heaven. He discovers a treasure and is impelled by joy to sell all he has in order to have

this treasure. You are converted to Christ when Christ becomes for you a treasure chest

of holy joy. The new birth of this holy affection is the common root of all the conditions of

salvation. We are born again -- converted -- when Christ becomes a treasure in whom we

find so much delight that trusting him, obeying him and turning from all that belittles him

becomes our normal habit.

Someone may say against Christian Hedonism: "It is possible to make a decision for

Christ without the incentive of joy." I doubt that very much. But the issue this morning is

not: "Can you make a decision for Christ without the incentive of joy, but should you?

Would it do you any good if you could? Is there any evidence in Scripture that God will

accept people who come to him out of any other motive than the desire for joy in him?

Someone will say, "Our aim in life should be to please God and not ourselves." But what

pleases God? Hebrews 11:6:

Without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God

must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

You cannot please God unless you come to him in search of reward.

What did Jesus say to Peter when Peter focused on his sacrificial self-denial and said,

"Lo, we have left everything and followed you" (Mt. 19:27)? Jesus saw the seeds of

pride: "We have made the heroic decision to sacrifice for Jesus." And how did he banish

that pride out of Peter's heart? He said:

There is no one who has left anything for my sake who will not receive a hundredfold

… now and in the age to come eternal life.

Peter if you don't come to me because I am a greater treasure than all those things you

have left, then you don't come to me at all. You are still in love with your own self-

sufficiency. You have not become like a little child basking in the beneficence of his

Father. It is pride that wants to be anything more than a little baby branch sucking

righteousness, peace and joy from Christ the vine. The condition of salvation is that you

come to Christ in search of reward and that you find in him a treasure chest of holy joy.

To sum up: There are five great truths every human needs to own up to. First, God is

our Creator to whom we owe heartfelt gratitude for all we have. Second, none of us feels

the depth and intensity and consistency of gratitude which we owe our Creator. Third,

we are therefore under the condemnation of God's righteousness. Our own judicial

sentiment shows us we are guilty. Fourth, in the death of Jesus Christ for our sins God

has made a way to satisfy the demands of his righteousness and yet accomplish

salvation for his people. Finally, the condition we must meet to benefit from this great

salvation is that we be converted to Christ -- and conversion to Christ is what happens

when Christ becomes for you a treasure chest of holy joy. Every Biblical invitation of the

gospel is rooted in the promise of lavish treasure. Christ himself is ample recompense

for every sacrifice. The invitation of the gospel is unmistakably hedonistic:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy

and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you

spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not

satisfy? Hearken diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in

abundance. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear that your soul may live.

(Isaiah 55:1-3)