Relevance

John Piper in Finally Alive speaks about relevance. Using preaching as an example, he writes that there are two ways that people can think of relevance:

1. When someone feels as if something is relevant.

"It might mean that a sermon is relevant if it feels to the listeners that it will make a significant difference in their lives." p.100 (emphasis his)

2. Things that are relevant whether someone realizes it or not.

"The second kind of relevance is what guides my sermons and my writing. In other words, I want to say things that are really significant for you life whether you know they are or not." (p.100)

In thinking about relevance in the second way he says that someone would be wrong to walk out of a sermon and say, "that has nothing to do with the real problems this world is facing." He then writes,

They would be wrong--doubly wrong. They would be wrong, in the first place, in failing to see that what Jesus meant by the new birth is supremely relevant for racism and global warming and abortion and health care and all the other issues of our day... And they would be wrong, secondly, in thinking that those issues are the most important issues in life. They aren't. They are life and death issues. But they are not the most important because they deal with the relief of suffering during this brief earthly life, not the relief of suffering during the eternity that follows. Or to put it positively, they deal with how to maximize well-being now for eighty years or so, but not with how to maximize well-being in the presence of God for eighty trillion years and more. (p.100,101)

Let us pray that those who come to Grace have their eyes opened to the reality of the Word being relevant to real life problems and that they might behold Christ and put their faith in Him that their greatest need might be met.