Let the Nations Be Glad!

by John Piper

  Nothing keeps God at the center of worship like the biblical conviction that the essence of worship is deep, heartfelt satisfaction in him and the conviction that the expression and pursuit of that satisfaction are why we are together. No outward act can replace this. The act can only express it (which we call a service of worship) or substitute for it (which we call hypocrisy).

  3. A third implication of saying that the essence of worship is satisfaction in God is that this essence protects the primacy of worship by forcing us to come to terms with the fact that worship is an end in itself. If the essence of worship is satisfaction in God, then worship can’t be a means to anything else. We simply can’t say to God, “I want to be satisfied in you so that I can have something else.” Such an expression would mean that we are not really satisfied in God but in that something else, and that would dishonor God.

  For thousands of people and pastors, however, the event of worship on Sunday morning (that is, the worship service) is conceived of as a means to accomplish something other than worship. We “worship” to raise money; we “worship” to attract crowds; we “worship” to heal human hurts; we “worship” to recruit workers; we “worship” to improve church morale. We “worship” to give talented musicians an opportunity to fulfill their calling; we “worship” to teach our children the way of righteousness; we “worship” to help marriages stay together; we “worship” to evangelize the lost among us; we “worship” to motivate people for service projects; we “worship” to give our churches a family feeling, and so on.

  If we are not careful, when we speak of aiming at these things “through worship,” we bear witness that we do not know what true worship is. Genuine affections for God (the essence of worship) are an end in themselves. I cannot say to my wife, “I feel a strong delight in you so that you will make me a nice meal.” That is not the way delight works. Delight ends with her. It does not have a nice meal in view. I cannot say to my son, “I love playing ball with you . . . so that you will cut the grass.” If your heart really delights in playing ball with him, that delight cannot be performed as a means of getting him to do something else.

  I am not denying that worship (the essence and the service) may have a hundred good effects in the life of the church. It will, just as true affection in marriage makes everything better. My point is: The degree to which we “do worship” for these reasons is the degree to which worship ceases to be authentic. Keeping satisfaction in God at the center guards us from that tragedy.

  4. Finally, the last implication of saying that the essence of worship is being satisfied with God is that this definition accounts for the fact that Paul considers all of life an expression of worship. All Christian behavior (in every culture at every level) is to be done out of satisfaction in God and with a view to preserving and increasing satisfaction in God. I devoted a chapter in Desiring God (“Love: The Labor of Christian Hedonism”) to justifying that sentence, but let me commend it to you with one word from the Lord Jesus.

  In Luke 12:33, Jesus says, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.” I understand “treasure in the heavens” to refer to increased measures of joy at God’s right hand and pleasures in his fellowship in the age to come. Jesus says that we are to provide ourselves with that—in other words, make efforts to increase our joys with God in heaven. He says that the way to do so is by selling our possessions and giving alms. That is illustrative of all the ways we sacrifice and love in the Christian life. We are to live this way so as to provide ourselves with treasures in heaven.

  In other words, we should aim in all we do to maximize our satisfaction in God—now and in the age to come. If someone asks, “Is it loving to give alms to others with a view to maximizing our own joy in God?” the answer is a resounding yes, because in giving up worldly things so that we can meet the needs of others, our aim is to persuade them that the treasure of God, which frees us to give in this way, is so valuable that they too should embrace it and live for it and so join us in the joys of heaven. Everyone who falls in love with God because they have seen in us that God is more precious than things will make our satisfaction in God all the sweeter. Which is one reason why missions is one of the most deeply satisfying callings in the world. “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

  So I believe it can be shown biblically that all our behavior should be motivated by a deeply freeing taste of God’s goodness and a thirst for more and more satisfaction in God. Therefore, the root of Christian living and the root of congregational praise are the same, which is why for Paul worship simply cannot be merely or even mainly thought of in terms of Sunday services but of all of life. His is an absolutely God-saturated vision of Christian existence. When our whole life is consumed with pursuing satisfaction in God, everything we do highlights the value and worth of God, which simply means that everything becomes worship. May God make himself—manifest fully in Jesus Christ—that precious to us.

  That is what I am referring to when I say, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is.” Our goal is to see that experience happen among all the peoples of the world. May the power of the gospel waken the dead, bring them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they see him and savor him with all their hearts. And may they be so radically satisfied in him that they are freed from the fears and pleasures of this world and follow Jesus on the Calvary road of love. Then others will see their good works and give glory to their Father in heaven— and the Word will go on from glory to glory.

  1. This chapter is an adaptation of material first published in John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002), chap. 28.

  2. Heinrich Greeven in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 765, observes the “astonishing fact” that while proskyneo is abundant in the Gospels (twenty-six times) and Acts (four times) and Revelation (twenty-one times), it is almost completely absent in the epistles (Heb. 1:6 and 11:21 are Old Testament quotations). Apart from Acts 24:11, where proskynein is a technical term for worship in the temple, the only instance of proskynesis in the primitive Christian community is in 1 Corinthians 14:25, where there appears to be an actual falling down. Elsewhere there is reference to kneeling in prayer (Acts 9:40; 20:36) and lifting the hands (1 Tim. 2:8), but the word proskynein is not used. Greeven concludes: “This is, however, a further proof of the concreteness of the term. Proskynesis demands visible majesty before which the worshipper bows. The Son of God was visible to all on earth (the Gospels) and the exalted Lord will again be visible to His own when faith gives way to sight (Revelation).”

  3. See note 2 for the few apparent exceptions in Hebrews.

  4. In line with what we saw in note 2, Heinrich Greeven remarks that “if instead of naming a place to which the pilgrims should go to worship, Jesus says that the true place of worship is in the spirit and in truth: this is an oxymoron. Undiluted proskynein, the act of worship which is concrete in place and gesture, is lifted up to a new dimension: ‘spirit and truth.’ ” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 6:764.

  5. I am aware that Jesus may not have spoken Greek with this woman at the well and so may not have actually used the word proskyneo. But I take it that John’s rendering of Jesus’ intention is accurate and that John’s use of proskyneo faithfully captures what Jesus wanted to communicate about the meaning of worship carried by that word.

  6. See John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Sisters, Ore.: Mult-nomah, 1996), 73–95, for a fuller treatment of the context of John 4 and its relationship to worship in spirit and truth.

  7. Another important word for worship, sebomai, is used twice in the Gospels (“In vain do they worship me” [Matt. 15:9 = Mark 7:7]) and eight times in Acts, always for God-fearing Gentiles except onc
e for pagan worship (Acts 19:27). The absence of this word in the epistles is again remarkable. It is as if the apostles, in their letters, avoided words that were current for synagogue worship, both proskyneo and sebomai.

  8. The noun of this verb is latreia and is used to translate the noun ‘abodah five times in the Greek Old Testament. Paul uses it twice, once for the Old Testament worship (Rom. 9:4) and once for the Christian life (Rom. 12:1).

  9. The same thrust is seen in the imagery of the people of God (body of Christ) as the New Testament “temple” where spiritual sacrifices are offered (1 Peter 2:5), where God dwells by his Spirit (Eph. 2:21–22), and where all the people are seen as the holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5, 9). Second Corinthians 6:16 shows that the New Covenant hope of God’s presence is being fulfilled even now in the church as a people, not in any particular service: “We are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’”

  10. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), IV, 10, 30, 1208.

  11. Quoted in Ewald M. Plass, ed., What Luther Says, vol. 3 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), 1546.

  12. Quoted in Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 116.

  13. See note 6.

  14. John Piper, The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in Future Grace (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1995).

  15. John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2000).

  16. John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998).

  17. C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1958), 93–95.

  18. Don’t take me to mean that the true Christian never struggles with low and almost dead and barren seasons of spiritual affections. We do. See especially the crucial discussion of three levels or stages of worship in Piper, Desiring God, 85–87. There can be faint echoes of the worth of God that shine through even when we are hanging on to hope in him by our fingernails. He is honored by the pitiful, dying woman who drowns in her own vomit (I speak from pastoral experience) and does not curse God but submits, if with screams, and hopes against hope that this horror is not wrath but the last ghoulish terror before everlasting dawn.

  19. I am keenly aware of the criticism that the direct pursuit of joy by taking one’s eyes off The Enjoyed is deadly. I am not commending that you go to the Grand Canyon of God’s greatness and sit on the rim with your finger on your pulse and your mind on your inner condition.

  That would cancel out the Canyon. Give yourself up to the Canyon. See it. Revel in it. Absorb it. Ponder it. That is the kind of pursuit I have in mind. God’s all-satisfying glory is not experienced by focusing on the experience but on the glory.

  Conclusion

  The ultimate goal of God in all of history is to uphold and display his glory for the enjoyment of the redeemed from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. His goal is the gladness of his people, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Delight is a higher tribute than duty. The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy his glory forever. Since his glory is magnified most in the God-centered passions of his joyful people, God’s self-exaltation and our jubilation are one. The greatest news in all the world is that God’s ultimate aim to be glorified and our aim to be satisfied are not at odds.

  Worship

  The goal of missions, therefore, is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps. 67:4). The missionary command to be happy in God is simply a command for the consummation of praise. Professed praise of God without pleasure in God is hypocrisy.

  Therefore, worship is the fuel and the goal of missions. Worship is the goal of missions because in missions we aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. It is the fuel of missions because we can’t commend what we don’t cherish. We can’t call out, “Let the nations be glad!” until we say, “I rejoice in the Lord.” Missions begins and ends in worship.

  Prayer

  This means that God is absolutely supreme in missions. He is the beginning and the end. He is also the one who sustains and empowers the entire process. “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:36). God’s moment-by-moment sustaining of the Christian movement preserves his supremacy, because the one who gives the power gets the glory. Let him who serves serve “by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11).

  This is why God has ordained prayer to have such a crucial place in the mission of the church. The purpose of prayer is to make clear to all the participants in missions that the victory belongs to the Lord. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Prov. 21:31). Prayer is God’s appointed means of bringing grace to the world and glory to himself. “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Ps. 50:15). “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13).

  Prayer puts God in the place of the all-sufficient Benefactor and puts us in the place of needy beneficiaries. Therefore, when the mission of the church moves forward by prayer, the supremacy of God is manifest and the needs of Christian missionaries are met. In prayer, he is glorified and we are satisfied. “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). The purpose of prayer is the Father’s fame and the saints’ fullness.

  Suffering

  God himself is the fullness we live on and the fountain of life that we commend in missions. He is our treasure. His “steadfast love is better than life” (Ps. 63:3). Therefore, the greatness of his worth is seen most clearly when we are willing to give up our lives for the sake of his love. We measure the worth of a treasure by what we will gladly give up in order to have it.

  Suffering alone proves nothing, but suffering accepted because of the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ” and losses embraced in order to “gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8) prove that Christ is supremely valuable. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you. . . . Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matt. 5:11–12). The extent of our sacrifice coupled with the depth of our joy displays the worth we put on the reward of God. Loss and suffering, joyfully accepted for the kingdom of God, show the supremacy of God’s glory more clearly in the world than all worship and prayer.

  Therefore, God ordains that the mission of his church move forward not only by the fuel of worship and in the power of prayer but also at the price of suffering. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matt. 10:25). “The Son of Man must suffer many things” (Mark 8:31). “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16). “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16).

  Is Knowing Christ Crucial?

  Because the price is so high, one may well ask, Is it really necessary? If the goal of God in history is to uphold and display his glory for the enjoyment of the redeemed, may it not be that he will redeem people without missions? Could people come to praise the true God from hearts of saving faith while still ignorant of Jesus and his saving work? Could nature or other religions lead people into eternal life and joy with God?

  The biblical answer we have seen
is no. It is a stunning New Testament truth that since the incarnation of the Son of God, all saving faith must henceforth fix on him. This was not always true. Before Christ, the people of Israel focused faith on the promises of God (Rom. 4:20) summed up in a coming Redeemer. And the nations were allowed to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16). But those times were called the times of ignorance. With the coming of the Son of God into the world, Christ was made the conscious center of the mission of the church. The aim of missions is to “bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his 1 name among all the nations” (Rom. 1:5). God’s will is to be glorified in his Son by making him the center of all missionary proclamation. The supremacy of God in missions is affirmed biblically by affirming the supremacy of his Son as the focus of all saving faith.

  People or Peoples?

  Since the eternal destiny of every individual hangs on knowing Christ and embracing him gladly as the highest value of life, is then the task of missions to maximize the number of people redeemed or the number of peoples reached? The biblical answer is that God’s call for missions in Scripture cannot be defined merely in terms of crossing cultures to maximize the total number of individuals saved.2 Rather, God’s will for missions is that every people group be reached with the testimony of Christ and that a people be called out for his name from among all the nations. It may be that this definition of missions will, in fact, result in the greatest possible number of white-hot worshipers for God’s Son. But that remains for God to decide. Our responsibility is to define missions his way and then obey.