Chapter 3 - Boasting Only in the Cross, The Blazing Center of the Glory of God

"The opposite of wasting your life is living life by a single God-exalting, soul-satisfying passion."

That passion should be to glorify God in everything that we do, and since Christ is the image of God, we must live for the glory of Christ crucified. Jesus Christ is the sum of God's glory in human form, and His beauty shined most brightly at His darkest hour. Christ crucified was the single focus of Paul and should be ours as well - "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:2).

"The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing."

And that one great thing is Jesus Christ.

In this chapter Piper shares two stores. The first is of 2 women in their 80's who were killed in Cameroon, West Africa while spending their adult life sharing the gospel. The other is of a couple who retired early in their 50's and moved to Florida where they spent the rest of their life playing softball and collecting shells. Which one of these stories do you believe is a tragedy? Below is a video clip of Pastor Piper talking about this very thing:

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." (Mark 8:35) Need I say more?

One of Piper's inspirations when writing this book was a group of conferences for college students and young adults that was organized by Louie Giglio. During these conferences Giglio calls on young people to make a 268 Declaration, coming from Isaiah 26:8 (NIV): "Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown (widespread honor) are the desire of our hearts." Piper adds to this declaration stating: "We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ." After sharing these declarations, he sumed up the message of Chapter 2 exorting the reader to "find the God-centered, Christ-exalted, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it."

The Apostle Paul displays this passion ever so clearly in the following passages:

Philippians 3:7-8

"What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ"

Acts 20:24
"...none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God."

Galatians 6:14
"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

The reason why Paul was so adamant in glorying in the cross of Christ, and that alone, is because everything that we have received as Christians was obtained for us by the cross of Christ. Apart from the cross all we have is judgment and condemnation. This doesn't mean that the only thing we rejoice in is the crucification of Jesus Christ. What it means is that every time that we rejoice, the foundation for what we glory in is the cross of Christ, knowing that it is the reason why we are able to rejoice. "Every experience we have is designed to glory the cross of Christ." (Page 49) "Every legitimate pleasure in the world becomes a blood-bought evidence of Christ's love, and an occasion of boasting in the cross." (Page 57)

"May the one thing that you cherish, the one thing that you rejoice in and exult over, be the cross of Jesus Christ." (Page 49)

Not only must we boast in the cross, but we must boast on the cross. In Galatians 2:20 Paul writes that: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Now we see that when we are crucified with Christ, we die to ourselves, and we live by faith in Christ Jesus. This is how God receives glory, because it is no longer us who lives, but Christ in us. So let us all deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23)

"A cross-centered, cross-exalting, cross-saturated life is a God-glorifying life--the only God-glorifying life. All others are wasted." (Page 59)

The following video is Pastor Piper preaching at the Passion Conference put on by Louie Giglio (mentioned above). It sums up this entire chapter and is a great end to this blog entry. Please take a moment to listen and meditate on what is being said: