#futuregrace

Piper begins Future Grace by defining future grace as , “not merely the grace of heaven and the age to come. [It is] the grace that begins now, this very second, and sustains your life to the end of this paragraph. [This] does not merely mean the pardon of God in passing over your sins, but also the power and beauty of God to keep you from sinning (5).”

In this series on utilizing future grace in biblical counseling I desire to consider Piper’s work in counseling - how can we as counselors look past bygone grace toward the work that God desires to do both presently and in the future. Specifically in this post, how does the work that God is doing presently, and promising to do in our future, help us battle against anxiety? 

A key text to begin with in considering this battle against anxiety is Matthew 6:25-34:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Spurgeon once said, ‘anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength…’ This is a true observation in light of Jesus’ words here in Matthew. The root of anxiety is inadequate faith in our Father’s future grace. As unbelief gets the upper hand in our hearts, one of the effects is anxiety (54). When we fail to trust in all of God’s promises for us in Jesus anxiety takes hold in our hearts and not only do we not remove one sorrow from tomorrow, we stand in the way of God’s power and put forth our own confidence (or lack of confidence) in the face of our troubles and we crumble in the wake of its magnitude. 

The good news is that when we see the connection between our anxiety and the unbelief that so quickly lays siege to our hearts we are able to rightly focus our fight and lay hold of victory in the promises that God has for us in Christ. The reality is that when anxiety strikes and our vision of God’s glory is blurred and the greatness of the future that he plans for us grows dim, when this takes place it does not mean that we are faithless, rather it means that our faith is under attack. Anxiety - unbelief in the promises of God - is the laying siege against our hearts by lies and lesser gods that strive to rob us of all hope and joy that is already ours in Christ. 

Piper points out in Psalm 56:3 (56) - When I am afraid, I put my trust in you - does not ignore the reality that fear will strike. In fact, it embraces the reality and puts forth a greater reality: the faithfulness of God when we place our trust in him. We are to cast our anxiety on God. 

So how do we fight against the fear and anxiety that aims to lay siege against our hearts? We fight anxiety by fighting against unbelief and fighting for faith in future grace. And the way we fight this good fight is by meditating on God’s assurances of future grace and by asking for the help of his Spirit (56).

I want to end by offering the seven promises that Piper puts forth in Future Grace as fuel for our fight against anxiety and for faith in future grace (57-59):

Promise 1: No matter what happens God will raise your body some day and preserve your life for his eternal fellowship (Matthew 6:25).

Promise 2: You are worth a whole lot more than birds (Matthew 6:26).

Promise 3: Anxiety accomplishes nothing worthwhile (Matthew 6:27-28).

Promise 4: God will take certainly take the the same energy and creative skill used towards the flowers of the field and use it to care for his children who will live forever (Matthew 6:28-30).

Promise 5: God does not look on indifferently toward your struggle - he will act to supply your need when the time is best (Matthew 6:31-32).

Promise 6: God will make sure that you have all you need to do his will and give him glory (Matthew 6:33).

Recently I wrote a summary of John Piper’s booklet Don’t Wate Your Cancer and how it has been helpful to me, especially in light of my own grandmother’s battle with cancer this last year (you can see that post here).

This week my grandmother went home to be with the LORD. In reflecting on her life, her cancer, and her death, my thoughts are drawn to the grace that is to be ours in Heaven.

My grandmother believed the gospel - she believed that everything she did in this life mattered not temporarly, but eternally. She spent her time on eternal things, she invested her life in eternal things, she loved others with an eternal perspective. As she taught children for over 30 years, she did so as one who realized that life’s greatest truths did not come from a math or science book. As she spent countless hours preparing sunday school and bible study lessons, she did so as one whose gaze was toward passing off knowledge, but worked in God’s word as one who desired a greater personal holiness herself, and desired for those around her to have a greater joy in Christ. As she spent time with our family she did so as one who knew that our greatest joy and ultimate hope was found in Christ alone. 

I cannot get over Paul’s words in Romans 8:32

 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

The reality is that my grandmother, and all believers, overwhelmingly conquer not by escaping terrible things, but by watching God turn these enemies of our joy into servants of our good.

This verse is precious because the foundation of the all-encompassing promise of future grace: the Son of God bore in his body all my punishment and all my guilt and all my condemnation and all my blame and all my fault and all my corruption, so that I might stand before a great God, forgiven, reconciled, justified, accepted, and the beneficiary of unspeakable promises of pleasure forever and ever at his right hand (Future Grace, 113). 

This verse was precious to my grandmother, is precious to my mother, and is precious to me. The reality of future grace is full realized today by my ‘nonnie.’ My family and I still await the full realization of that promise, the sweet reality of heaven, but we know that it will be ours, because God has given us His son, so He will surely give us all things, even the difficult things, so that He might receive glory, and so that we might become more like His Son. 

So help us to pray in this season LORD

Oh LORD I believe, help my wretched unbelief. What a life! Help me be free from mummering and complaint, and full of risk and joy and love! O to beleive this! That you are at work! God, I desire to live in the reality of future grace! Spare me nothing that would put me in this glorious confidence. Amen

I have been considering for some time that much of our biblical counseling is absent of encouraging faith in future grace. I have recently been considering Piper's question in the preface of his book Future Grace and find myself unable to escape this question:

"Could it be that gratitude for bygone grace has been pressed to serve as the power for holiness, which only faith in future grace was designed to perform?

Piper goes on to argue that, "the great redemptive works of past grace - for example, the death and resurrection of Jesus, are indispensable foundations for our faith in future grace. But their power resides precisely in that - they purchase and certify the future grace in which we hope. The life and death of Jesus were God's YES to all his promises (2 Cor. 1:20). Therefore, obedience rises and fall in proportion to faith in future grace."

As we counsel the word are we consumed with reminding the counselee to look back at what God has done that we minimize what God is doing and forget to mention what he is going to do... 

"God has called us to be beneficiaries of his grace, both bygone grace (which is foundational) and future grace (which propels us forward to love). This evidence frees us to bank on God's promises as our own. And this banking on the promise empowers us to love others, which in turn confirms that our faith is real. Thus faith is the bottom line condition that unites us to the power of future grace; and love is a condition only in confirming the reality of this faith..."