Leslie Wiggins of Lux Venit and I are completing Part 1 of 10 in a month-long series on the 31 chapters of John Piper's book The Purifying Power of Living By Faith in Future Grace, better known as Future Grace. Join in, won't you? It's still early days yet.
God Meant What He Said
I don't know how many times I've heard people say, "I know the Bible says, 'Be holy, as I am holy' (I Peter 3:15, echoing Leviticus 11:44), but God can't have really meant that." I've heard the same logic applied to Christ's words in Matthew 6:34,"Do not be anxious about tomorrow," and Luke 12:22, "Do not be anxious about your life," and Paul's words in Philippians 4:6, "Do not be anxious about anything." But if there are three things that we feel we have a right to worry about, they are these exact three things, are they not?
Let's look at the grammar quickly (I can't help it; I teach high school English). All three injunctions are delivered in the imperative tense; they are commands. Incidentally, in a more recent Piper book entitled What Jesus Demands from the World, Demands #14 and #15 are, respectively, "Do Not Be Anxious About the Necessities of Daily Life," and "Do Not Be Anxious About the Threats of Man." In these chapters, Piper further unpacks a topic he can only spend a relatively brief chapter on in Future Grace.
So he commands and demands we not be anxious. But surely these commands and demands don't rank up with the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and the Great Commission? We need to be careful here. Much like the narrative segments (i.e.,"Jesus Feeds the Ten Thousand") and the chapter divisions that editors have imposed upon the text in sincere efforts to aid the reader, our conception of the relative importance of these passages have been somewhat skewed by such quick-reference nomenclature. Can we really parcel out what is more important than what? Wouldn't it be far more biblically faithful to take all Christ's commands - and by extension, all apostolic commands - at face value? With relativistic thinking removed, we end up with the injunction "Do not be anxious" at the same level as "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5, revisited and clarified by Jesus in Mark 10 and Luke 12). Not only are they on the same level of importance, Piper would contend, but they are one in the same command. Since anxiety is at its core a type of unbelief, the injunction to love the Lord your God with all your being implies the eradication of anxiety by believing and trusting in Him; namely, placing faith in future grace.
Leave It with God
One of the sections in the third chapter that affected me greatly was under Promise #3, anchored by Matthew 6:27-28: "And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span? And why are you anxious about clothing?" This is when the rubber hits the road. We can have all our theology down, but when the temptation to anxiety creeps up, we need to be ready to deploy the promises of God. Here is Piper: "This is a promise of sorts - the simple promise of reality: anxiety will not do you any good. It's not the main argument, but sometimes we just have to get tough with ourselves and say, 'Soul, this fretting is absolutely useless. You are not only messing up your own day, but a lot of other people's as well. Leave it with God and get on with your work.' Anxiety accomplishes nothing worthwhile." Even in an age in which pragmatism is practiced almost religiously, it's amazing how we (myself very much included) can succumb to anxiety, although it's ultimately impractical.
I hate to leave this discussion dangling, but we've still got 28 chapters to go. In the meantime, please read Leslie's Scripture-saturated discussion of Chapter 3 and check out a highly recommended book, Edward Welch's Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the Rest of God.
