Human beings, by nature, don’t draw the same conclusions that God does from many facts, and we don’t feel the same way God does about the conclusions that he draws from the facts. What I mean by human nature is a mind, an attitude, a bent that thinks badly about many things. It is found in phrases like, “by nature we are children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). By nature, there is something wrong with us. We don’t just do bad things; we have a bad nature. We might be able to say that two plus two is four, but then we do terrible things with that ability. Another text would be 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit because they are foolishness to him.” If God says something strange, we don’t like it. We by nature regard lots of things that are true as foolish. So there’s something wrong with us— when God draws conclusions from things that look strange to us, we get in his face and we disagree with him and call him into question. T he older I get, the more I see evidences of this in me and in other Christians in the way we read our Bibles and in the way we respond to providences. An example of this that is moving me into this issue of missions is: in order for us to have a heart for the nations—a heart for the unreached, close and distant, individuals and ethnic groups—in order for us to have a heart for the nations that is strong enough, deep enough, durable enough, God-centered enough, and Christ-exalting enough to be the kind of heart it should be, we need to base this heart for the nations on the same thing on which God bases his heart for the nations.

OUr THOUgHTs THe sAMe As GOd’s THOUgHTs

Now so far I don’t think our thoughts would be different than God’s thoughts. You know the text, “Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your ways are not my ways” (Isa. 55:8). That’s because the mind of the flesh is at enmity with God, and we think all kinds of things that God doesn’t think.

It doesn’t mean that he can’t and we can’t think the same thought as unbelievers, like the earth is round instead of square. It means there are many facts from which God draws conclusions but from which we don’t draw the same conclusions. And he feels about them ways we don’t feel. But, so far in that little analogy, we’re okay. We’re thinking God’s thoughts. So far we’re saying in order for us to have the kind of heart for the nations that is durable enough and strong enough and deep enough and Christ-exalting enough and God-centered enough, in order to be what it ought to be, we need to base that heart for the nations on the same thing God does. So far, we’re thinking like God, if we’re there.

GOd’s PAssION fOr HIs OWN NAMe ANd gLOrY

But when we see what God bases his heart for the nations on there are a lot of backs that get up, because what God bases his heart for the nations on is his passion for his own name and his own glory. I go all over the country and the world saying this, and I watch the reactions, I field the questions, and I have discovered for about thirty years now that this thought, that God would be jealous for his name and on the basis of that be given to pursue the nations and their salvation and their judgment in the measure that he decides, is alien to many believers, not to mention unbelievers. Since that is so alien to us, what I want to do is to build my case that God bases his heart for the nations on his heart for himself. And in doing that I want to lay out texts, because what I think is of no consequence whatsoever if it doesn’t correspond to biblical truth. The only thing you should care about is Does what Piper says correspond to what the Bible teaches? That’s all that matters. My authority as a pastor isn’t what counts, my being older than most of you isn’t what counts, my having a certain level of education is not what counts. What counts is, Does this man get under the Bible instead of over the Bible? Does he submit and then talk plainly about what he finds here, in such a way that ordinary folks can say, ‘Yes, that must be what it says and what it means, because there it is.’

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