Kennystix's podcast
The Whole Glory of the Gospel of God
The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Let's pray together. Gracious Father, I ask that you would come now and reveal yourself to be the highest and greatest and most satisfying and most valuable treasure in the universe. And having revealed yourself to be that, would you so sovereignly work in hearts that cannot fathom that, feel that, treasure that, work a change? So that we treasure you above all that the earth can give. All the sins that the earth can give, and all the goodness that the earth can give. I pray that we would treasure you above all. And that in our treasuring you above all, through Jesus Christ, you would be magnified so that the world would see that there is a treasure hidden in a field and that it's worth selling everything to have. So come and create that kind of treasuring now in this place. I ask in Jesus name. Amen. If I had to do the title over again for tonight than the one I gave a month or so ago, it would be called God is the Gospel. I'd really like to write a book by that title someday, and I think I will. If God gives me grace, God is the Gospel. The title I gave was the whole glory of the Gospel of God from him, through him and to him. And they mean the same thing, but I would have simplified it. And let me give you the point or the thesis, and then we'll start unpacking it. The Gospel is the good news that by faith alone, through grace alone, on the basis of the blood and righteousness of Christ alone, to the glory of God alone sinners are enabled to have God as their full and everlasting joy. That's the Gospel. The Gospel of the good news of Christ of God is that by faith alone, through grace alone, by means of and on the basis of the blood and righteousness last night of Christ alone, to the glory of God alone sinners are enabled to have God as their full and everlasting pleasure. That's what I think the Gospel is, and I have a burden that there is not enough gospel preaching in the church and to the world that shows that all the accomplishments of the cross terminate ultimately in the enjoyment of God. Or it's not biblical good news. And there are many things that Christ bought for us which people want without that. And we'll end there talking about maybe eight or nine things, glorious, precious things, biblical things that the cross of Christ bought for us, secured for us, guaranteed for us, which if you only have them are not the Gospel. Many people want things that Christ bought for his people minus the enjoyment of God as the terminus, the end point, the goal of their eternity. So that's where we're going. Now this assumes a huge God-centeredness to the Gospel, and I think the best way to unpack the God-centeredness of the Gospel is to unpack the God-centeredness of God in the Gospel. That is we need to trace from eternity to eternity, from predestination to consummation, we need to trace the saving works of God in such a way that we see in them God's God-centeredness in doing them. Because until people feel the God-centeredness of God, I don't think they are going to be able to fathom the Gospel. They're not going to be able to understand where the Gospel is going and what is good news about the Gospel, which isn't mainly about having your guilt removed, so that you struggle less with bad feelings of your sin. That is absolutely precious. We would die for that. It's not the goal of the Gospel. God is the goal of the Gospel. The enjoyment of God and everything else that the cross-purchase is a means to that end. That's where we'll end. But to get there, I think we need to see how God is central in his own heart and own mind at every stage of his saving work for us. Let's take a tour of biblical, redemptive work of God and start with predestination and then go to creation and then go to incarnation and then go to salvation and propitiation and then go to sanctification and then go to consummation and notice how the Bible at every point explicitly says this is all about God. Then we'll do a little detours along the way because I've been picking up questions here and I want to do detours to answer some questions. So it's going to be a little bit disjointed because I'd like to address some things I've been hearing within the context of what I had planned to say anyway. So let's start with predestination. I'm going to go to Ephesians 1, 5, and 6 and simply read the goal of predestination. It is God's predestining before the world was who would be saved. Then it says in Ephesians 1, 5, he predestined us to adoption. So he looked into the future and he destined some to adoption. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will and then this phrase. To the praise of the glory of his grace. Now that's a literal translation your version might say to the praise of his glorious grace or something like that. Doesn't matter. Those mean the same thing. To the praise of the glory of his grace. That's the goal. That's what it means. This is happening to that. This is happening to that. What's happening? Predestination unto sonship. That is some are predestined to be folded effectively into the family of God. Why? So that they would praise the glory of God's grace. So boil that down, shorten it down. God predestines that he would be praised. That's what it says really clearly. That's real easy and clear. You just have to make sure you put the front end of the sentence together with the back end of the sentence and not get lost in the middle. He predestined unto the praise of his glory. He chose to do a certain thing so that he gets praised. Now here's a little detour I'd like to make. I'm picking up that there are a lot of questions in your mind since this Acts 29 at least. I know there are a lot of non Acts 29 folks here and you'll have the same questions perhaps. How do those kinds of reformed distinctives fit together with other distinctives like radically committed to evangelism? Prayer. A lot of people stumble like, okay, there's predestination. God decides in eternity who's going to draw to himself, hold into his family, adopt so that they will praise his glory and the glory of his grace forever. How does that fit together now with evangelism? So if I had a board here to draw with, I'll draw it, but I'm going to draw it in the air. I'm going to picture an evangelistic moment and use text to describe the movement. So watch it in the air. Here's God. And here's an evangelist or any of you, just a person who may be sitting across from a lunch table at work with an unbeliever. And God here has brought you to himself. Let's just start there. You've got a Christian and this Christian has a burden that this person be a Christian. So here's the unbeliever. Now we've got a little triangle here. God, evangelist, Christian, and unbeliever. Now this line right here, I would write texts on it like, how shall they call upon him? Who have they not heard? Who have they not heard? And how shall they call upon the one they haven't believed? And how shall they believe without a preacher? So that's how this guy came into being. How shall they preach and they be sent? So this fellow here, going to Romans 10, 14, is being sent to that person by God. So this line is fixed. He has himself a spokesman. Go speak my gospel to this person. So now we need a line here and this line is how shall they hear unless somebody preaches? This is the sent and this is the now preach. So you've got a preaching going this way of the gospel and you've got hearing going this way. And I need to make clear, I think, that as a lover of the sovereignty of God, a believer in predestination, that there are a lot of texts along this line that I cherish along with. Along with my Armenian brothers. For example, I will say, be across the lunch table or in an evangelistic meeting or in this meeting right now, I will say, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Anyone, let him come, or I will say, come to me, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me from me, lowly in heart. You'll find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. My burn is like, come to me. How oft would I have gathered you like a hand gathers your chicks and would not tears flowing down Jesus's face. Calvinists reformed people preach that way. On three, sixteen, God so loved the world. You're looking at him across the table. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever that includes you, whoever would believe will have no more perishing. You won't come into eternal death. You'll have everlasting light. You say that across the table to the person, or first Timothy 2, 4, he desires all men to be saved. You say that. You don't apologize for that. A reformed believer in predestination is not embarrassed by the Bible. Not embarrassed by, he desires all men to be saved. That includes you. Now, sticking a sub parenthesis here, all of us have issues with that. Doesn't really matter what your theology is here. All men are not saved, right? Unless you're a universalist. And if you are, you won't join this church. And you're just in the middle of the world from where I am biblically. But those of us who are struggling within the biblical framework to understand God know all people are not saved. And so we've all got an issue here. God desires something that doesn't happen. And then we just offer different explanations for why it doesn't happen. And the question is which is biblical? An Armenian says God prizes free will above saving everybody. A Calvinist says God prizes his own glory in the display of all of his excellencies, including Justin some wrath above saving everybody. The question is which is biblical? Everybody qualifies that word desire. So that's the end of the sub parenthesis. Back to this image here. You say that. You're not embarrassed by that. You say to him, there is a profound real sense in which God wants you saved. He sent me here. I'm across this table in the name of Jesus. On behalf of God, I say be reconciled to God. Or you say Romans 10 21. All day long, he has held out his arms to a disobedient and rebellious people. So you're willing to picture God holding out his arms to a disobedient and rebellious people. So that's the way we preach. You should preach that way. Preach, share. There's an old song that never gets sung in this church probably. Maybe it does. You might have put it to some new music. I'd love to hear it. If you do, it's called softly and tenderly. It's an old invitation song that my dad used as an evangelist for 50 years while he was saving more people than I'll ever shake a stick out under God's blessing. And softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling. Calling for you and for me. See at the portals he's waiting and watching. Watching for you and for me come home. Come home. You who are weary. Come home. I can picture my dad. I can just picture my dad dozens of times as an evangelist coming down out of the pulpit, standing at the front with his arms like this. The choir and the people are seeing tears running down his face looking at people right in the eye. Come home. Come home. You who are weary come home softly and tenderly. Jesus is calling. Calling for you and for me. Can a reformed person sing that song? The answer is yes. So now you've got a picture that looks so unreformed and unfreedestenarian, right? You've got God in the form of Jesus in the form of an evangelist looking at people saying see is the portal that is through a window. He's waiting and watching. That does not sound like predestination and irresistible grace. It's just very biblical. Very biblical. So now there's the picture. We've got a triangle. Actually we don't. We have a right angle, don't we? We have God and we have this loving ready to lay down his life, Christian evangelist who may be a week old in the Lord and we have unbeliever that was intended to motivate you. Get off your butt. And then we've got this unbeliever who's desperately in need of these baby believers talking to him about what's just happened to him and using every verse in the Bible he can think of, including all the ones that I just said. I'm going to create the rest of the triangle for you. You're at an evangelistic meeting. My dad just finished a 45 minute sermon, poured out his heart, sharing the glories of the cross, the sufficiency of the cross for all people who will believe in. And he's now standing in front, singing softly and tenderly, and you have brought your dad whom you love very much and he's not a believer and you're a week or a month or year old in the Lord and you want your dad to hear the gospel and be saved. You don't want to lose your dad to hell and you're sitting several rows back and the song is being sung and in your heart you know a lot of prayers have been answered up to this point. A lot of prayers. Your dad came. That's the main thing. Your dad came. Oh God, may he be willing to come. And then would you put really good solid gospel in the mouth of the preacher and that answer to prayer happens. And then would you issue a very loving, open-armed invitation to my dad. And that has happened. Three prayers had been answered and there you sit now. You're here beside your dad. He's just heard the gospel. You're sitting there beside him. You're bent down and your face is in your hands. And I just want to ask you now, what are you praying? Are you done praying? Well you've done everything you can do God. And now it's all him. So I'm not praying anymore. Hardly anybody relates to God and their dad that way. My son walked away from Jesus at age 19 and walked back at age 23. He was excommunicated as I read the letter to the church and he was magnificently welcomed back with tears flowing down his cheek. I tell you, during those four of the worst years of my life as a pastor, I cried more buckets of tears than I did over my dead mother or any other crisis in my church. And I didn't pray. Well you've done all you can do. It's all him now. I said now, before I tell you what I said to the Lord, I want to say what's happening here now is what every son wants for a dad is that the triangle would be completed. That God called a believer to preach. God brought the unbeliever into the sway of the gospel. The gospel has been heard. The gospel has been preached. There's a kid here sitting there praying. What is he asking God to do? He's asking God to complete the triangle by sending the Holy Spirit like this down underneath his dad's heart, not to make a robot out of him, but to change him such that he sees the irresistible beauty of Christ. And thus freely says yes. That's what you're praying. Oh God, save my dad. Now let me give you some verses for this arrow because this is the arrow that makes one reform. Up till now we have a beautiful Arminian right angle. And it is all true. Just like last night when I said the way they believe about the atonement is true. It's just that we believe more than they believe. Now I'm seeing the same thing. Amen. God calls preachers. Amen. God sends preachers. Amen. God helps and enables gospel to come. Amen. This guy's responsible and must use his will to respond. All that right angle is there. It's true. It's biblical. Oh, everyone who thirsts come to the waters. You have no money. Come by and eat. It's just not the whole biblical story. In fact, if it were, nobody would get saved because inside this man's heart is stone and rebellion. The heart of flesh is at enmity with God. It does not submit to God. Neither can it. That's Romans eight seven. Neither can it. There's so much corruption, so much rebellion, so much hostility, so much self preservation. It cannot save itself. It must have. So you pray and hear the text that would define if I were writing this. Now I'd write these on this line. And here's the first one. And I turned them all into prayer. I'll tell you I was on my face hour upon hour upon hour turning these texts into prayers for my son Abraham. And he would not mind. I've been on the email with him today. In fact, as we are finishing a hymn that I wrote for our people last Sunday. I wrote a song. I had no tune to go with it. My son was four years making rock music, living in a van, doing all the stuff that I wish he didn't do. And now he's back and in total reaction against this kind of music, believe it or not. Twenty four would not like this. And because he lived there for four years away from Jesus, it's all wrong in his head. All the associations of booze and tobacco and girls is all there. He cannot hardly handle our worship. And we're not quite that loud, but similar. So we're on the email today and we're working on a song together. Now that is almost heaven to me. That's almost heaven to me. And he knows that I was praying. This is the way I was praying. Acts 16, 14. Lord, as you open Lydia's heart to give heed to the gospel, I'm going to switch the image here from Father to Son. I had a father sitting here and a saved son. Now I've got a lost son and saved father. Lord, open my son's heart that he might give heed to the gospel. Acts 16, 14. 1 Corinthians 1, 24. Lord, just as you said, that some regard the cross is foolish. Some counted the stumbling block. Lord, you said those were called. See it as the power of God and the wisdom of God. Would you please do a Lazarus kind of call for my son and say, Lazarus, stand for. And he comes out of the grave. Believe me, Lazarus did not wake himself up from the dead, which is why you go then to Ephesians 2, 5. And you say, Lord, just as you talk, why we were dead in trespasses and seeds, you made us alive together with Christ Jesus. By grace we are saved. Lord, would you please make my dead son alive? Make him alive, Lord. Or 2 Timothy 2, 26. Lord, grant him repentance. Grant him repentance. It says that we as teachers should be hurtful and patient with those who are disagreeing with us if perchance God might grant them repentance. And so we turn that into a prayer. Oh, grant, give the gift of repentance to my son. Or 2 Corinthians 4, 6. The God who said that light shone out of darkness has shone into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Do that for my son. Do what you did. The analogy there is Genesis 1-1 or 1-3 or whatever it is. Let there be light. Do that for my son. He's in the dark. He can't see anything. He can't see anything. Everything is folly and stupidity. Don't leave him in the dark. Shine into his light with life and light and glory. Or we take Ezekiel 11-19 where it says he takes out the heart of stone. He puts in the heart of flesh and I say do a great heart transplant. Lord, please, please Lord, while he's sitting here listening to this softly and tenderly, would you awaken him to the fact that the Jesus behind that portal who's waiting is irresistibly attractive? And in his mercy, if God chooses, he opens his heart. And if he doesn't, he'll never be saved. That's the other side of the picture. That's the completion of the picture. We don't deny indiscriminate evangelism. We demand indiscriminate evangelism. Just getting in everybody's face saying you were created for the glory of God. You belong to God if you just knew why you were made. Come, he will not turn you away. He's full of mercy. He will not say the nay. Come. And if they come, God enabled them to come. No one comes to me unless the Father drags him. That's a literal translation from El Cua drags him. It's a little bit misleading to translate that way though because I heard somebody on the radio the other day defending Reformed Theology say that he was saved. There's just Lewis said this too. It's just kind of a metaphor. But he was saved kicking and streaming brought into the kingdom against his will. That's not true. Nobody ever saved against their will. Nobody is saved against their will because it is the choosing of Christ that constitutes our justification. That is, we must choose him and believe in him. Choose you this day whom you will serve. Get off the fence or get to one side or the other. The question is not whether we come against our will. The question is why does one person's will awaken to the beauty of Christ and feel drawn by it. And another person's will stay dead to the beauty of Christ and not be drawn by it. And the answer to that is the effective work of the Holy Spirit. Now you wonder why did he bring this under predestination. And the answer is if God chooses to awaken my son, which he did, he didn't do it on the spur of the moment. He planned to do it forever. That's called predestination. God doesn't enter the world unsure of what he's going to do. And then ponder a possibility, think through the options and then say, oh, I didn't know I was going to do this, but I'll do this. God is not like that. God knows from eternity what he's going to do. And we call it predestination. So that's the end of my parenthesis on how predestination relates to evangelism. That was number one, predestination. Here's what we're doing. We're trying to look at the saving works of God to see how Scripture makes God the center. God makes God the center. So we've seen he predestines to the praise of his glory. Second, creation. God be created if you're going to be saved and enjoy God forever. Isaiah 43, 6, and 7. "Bring my son, Samaphar, my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory." God has created you for his glory. That is, you were created to make his glory look really good. You were created to glorify, magnify, display, make much of God. People should be able to look at your life in the way you live it, the way you speak it, the way you feel it, think it, and read God off of you as somebody really valuable. It says a lot about lifestyle, by the way. Can they look at you and read off your life, God must exist and be a rewarder to those who seek you? God must be really valuable. And I'll tell you, this is sub-parensis, the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel never causes anybody to say God is valuable. It just causes people to say God's a good benefactor and things are valuable. The lifestyle that causes people to say God is valuable is war and lay it down your life and doing the hard thing that can only be explained if your treasure is in heaven. A posh, easy devil may care, just like the world's lifestyle doesn't awaken anybody to the supreme value of God. It awakens people to the guilt-free enjoyment of stuff. That's not salvation. Salvation is treasuring God above stuff, even all the innocent stuff. The big challenge in America is how in the world, in this prosperity, will we ever find lifestyles that cause anybody to say 1 Peter 3.15 to us, and nobody ever does. Remember that verse? Be ready to give an answer to those who ask a reason for the hope that is in you. Anybody ever ask you a reason for the hope? Hope that's in you because evidently they were living in such a way that it didn't look like they were hoping in the same things, the world hoped in. I mean, if you're living in such a way that you look like you're hoping in all the same things, the world hopes in, nobody's going to ask you that question because they know the answer already. They live that way. There evidently is a life that looks so different in terms of sacrificial, self-denying, love sustained by massive satisfaction in God and hope that makes the world say, "Hmm, I don't compute like that. I don't take like that. You were created to cause people to look at you and get a glory to your Father in heaven." That's you, 516. That's number two. So, just make sure you get the point. God created for the glory of God. God created you for the glory of God. This is a God-centered action of God. Number three, incarnation. The angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy. For unto you this day is born in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord." And this will be a sign for you. You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger and behold, suddenly there was with them a multitude of heavenly hosts saying, "Glory to God at this event." He came into the world as a little baby in order to produce angel praise. Glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace with those with whom he is well pleased. He gets the glory. We get the peace. It's the best deal you can imagine. We're always trying to get the glory. He can have the peace if he wants it, but I want the glory. And we're not saved yet. Incarnation is for the glory of God. And God planned it that way and therefore he's God-centered. Number four, you can pick different words here. I have propitiation written down. And I've got three different texts. I'll use one. 2 Corinthians 5, 15. Christ died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him, who for their sakes died and rose again. Christ died that we might live for Christ. And the four there for him is really dangerous. It's fraught with idolatry. Possibilities. Because Jesus said the Son of Man came not to be served. So don't take the four there as though it's just, I'm going to work for him now. At 1725, God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything. For he himself gives you all man life and breath and everything. God will remain the benefactor in this relationship. He will never turn into a needy God. We will never be able to meet his needs. We will never be able to work for him and enhance him and improve upon him and enrich him. We're always recipients. He's always the giver. And the giver gets the glory. And we get the joy. And that's the best deal in the world. And so right in the center of the cross, he died for us so that we would live for not for in the sense of poor Jesus. He needs us to work for him. I used to jog on this route. I hope I don't lose my place here. This just came into my head. I used to jog on this route down to Cedar Avenue up to Washington back about a two mile, two mile run. And there's this machinist company and they had a permanent sign screwed into the wall of the building where I ran by. I wanted. And I thought good. It's our machinist. That's rare. You know? But some days I would jog by and there would be a big red square. No screw right into the middle of the sign. No help wanted. And every time I saw it, yes! The gospel! Ha ha! No help wanted. Thank you anyway. I'm God. I'm God. I don't need your help. I am here to bless you. You're not here to bless me. Do you want to go around me? Be empty. Let me be full. You bring your buckets of effort to me to try to improve or supply. I'm dishonored. So the cross here in 2 Corinthians 5, 15, he died for all so that those who live might no longer live for themselves. Doesn't mean now they start working for him. It means now they start magnifying him, praising him, displaying his glory, being satisfied in him and thus reflecting his infinite value. So the cross is all about the glory of God and there are a lot of other texts. The next step is sanctification. Fancy word for becoming holy or becoming loving or becoming like Jesus? Listen to this prayer from Philippians 1-9. This I pray that your love, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. So that you may be, I'm jumping verse 11, filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Now when sentences are long, like 9, 10, 11, when sentences are long and you want to see how the beginning and the end relates to each other, you collapse them down to see the God centeredness of sanctification. He's praying that the churches I serve would be more loving, that knowledge would abound in love, that they would be more like Jesus, that's the way he prayed. But listen, he's asking God to do this and he's ending the prayer by saying God make them loving, holy, pure, full of truths of righteousness to the glory and praise of God. God make us holy for you. God make us holy so that you look glorious. So he's saying I'm tapping in to your magnificent self exaltation here, your radical deep commitment to show yourself glorious. I'm tapping in there and I'm making death the ground of my prayer. I know you are into God God and therefore I am going to pray that you'll answer my prayer for your great name's sake. There's a lot of prayers like that in the Bible. So there's sanctification for the glory of God and God's doing it. One more. I've got two more. The unity of the church. Do that real fast. I feel such a burden for racial reconciliation. We call it racial harming at our church. We're not all that good at it. I just feel a weight. They're in a culture like ours, a history like ours. Just take African American, for example. We've got a lot of other ethnicities around us in the city and in our country. I mean, it's just incredible. A new pot that we live in, a melting pot that never was a reality. A stew pot. You know, the difference in a melting pot, everybody becomes the same as a stew pot. The pieces remain the same and yet they all flavor each other. So, stew pots are better. Picture than melting pot. And we've not yet figured this out, especially among black and white. And the Bible has lots to say about that and lots to say about the cross and salvation in relation to his Jews and his Greeks or here's black and here's white or pick up whatever ethnicity you happen to be near. And the Bible says that we all by this cross are made into one new man as we come to Christ together. And it says, he does it for the glory of God. Romans 15, 5 to 7, he's praying again, may the God of hope grant you to live in such harmony with one another that you may with one voice glorify your God and Father. There's picture there. God, grant that we all could live in harmony so that we can praise you. God, you're interested in your praise. You are gloriously committed to your self-exaltation. So now come and get the races and the ethnicities together in the body of Christ so that your name would be magnificent. So even at the level of that kind of sanctification, community sanctification and reconciliation, God is into God. Last one, consummation. Why is Jesus coming back? Here's the way 2 Thessalonians 1-9 put it. "These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction," and he's talking about unbelievers there who've resisted Christ. "These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He comes," now watch this, two purpose clauses. "when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day and to be marveled at among all who have believed." Two reasons why He's coming. To be glorified in the saints and to be marveled at. I mean, just imagine such a thing. That's absolutely audacious. If I were to come to this conference and stand behind this little excuse for a pulter, the hardly even hold my notes in my bottle. And I've not complaining much. And I stood here and I said, "Now the reason I'm here is so that all the saints in this room would glorify me and so that everyone would be marveling at me by the time I'm done." If I started my sermon that way, I hope that you would all leave or to throw stones at me. That would be a horrible way for me to talk. And that's exactly what the Bible says Jesus says. "I'm coming back and I'm coming back to be glorified in my people and I'm coming back to be marveled at." So now we've got a problem. I'm at the end of my initial survey of all the main saving works of God through history showing that they are all. God is very God-centered and now we have Christ being very Christ-centered in the works of redemption. And we have a major problem on our hand and it becomes really clear with this last one. And the problem is that it doesn't sound like love for God to be so self-exalting. If I were that way, you would not say, "What a loving guy. He just wants so much praise for himself." He's so loving. He's just exalting himself and he's wanting people to bow down and praise him and he's so loving. You would not say that. And that's the way Jesus is. So we've got a problem here. We have to figure out why for Jesus or God the Father for all of history to make himself the center is not being a megalomaniac but being loving. I'm not creating this problem. I keep my ears open to the culture to see whether or not people are stumbling like this. I know that C.S. Lewis did. If you read C.S. Lewis' biography, I'm not sure it's in quest for joy. It might be in reflections on the Psalms. He said, "When I read the Psalms," I think it was in reflections on the Psalms. When I read the Psalms, which Christians say are inspired by God and read everywhere, praise me, praise me, praise me, praise me. It sounded to me like an old woman needing compliments. He wrote that. He was 28 years old and not yet converted and he had a huge stumbling block in front of him. The Bible portrays God as a megalomaniac. That would be his understanding before he's converted. Then I was in London a couple years ago and this was handed to me. This is an article from the Financial Times of London written by Michael Prouse. It's a book review and it begins like this. This is why he's not a believer and he's writing on the financial page of the Times. He says, "Worship is an aspect of religion that I always found difficult to understand. Suppose we postulate an omnipotent being who for reasons inscrutable to us decided to create something other than himself. Why should he expect us to worship him? We didn't ask to be created. Our lives are often troubled. We know that human tyrants puffed up with pride, crave, adulation and homage, but a morally perfect God would surely have no character defects. So why are all those people on their knees every Sunday? This man cannot become a Christian as long as he feels about God that way, right? He looks at this concept of Christianity, religion in general in his case, saying it looks as though they're portraying God as somebody who is always asking for praise. Which we do. I just spent a half an hour at least persuading you. Hopefully that's exactly the way God portrays himself in the Bible. I want your praise! Praise me! Or you will go to hell! Praise me! And Michael Prouse looks at that and says, "No, thank you. I am not interested in that kind of God." Well, I don't like to take pot shots at people who may never have anybody share the gospel with them. So the way I approached this was I wrote a letter. I found him on the Internet. I mean, Internet's incredible for evangelism, isn't it? It's just incredible. So I found him on the Internet and I wrote him a letter. This is at desiringGod.org if you want to have it. I printed it today in my hotel room from our website and I want to read you a piece of it so that you can see my response. And this really takes us into the body of the talk tonight. How in the world can it be loving for God to be so self-exalting? So here's my dear Mr. Prouse. I don't know if he ever got this. He never responded to me. I sent it to what was there, but he never responded yet anyway. So you pray. It would be my great joy to persuade you that God's demand for worship is beautiful love, not ugly pride. On March 30th you wrote, and then I quoted what I just read. I don't understand why you assume that the only incentive for God to demand praise is that he's needy or defective. This is true for humans, but with God there is another possibility. What if, as the atheist I in Rand once said, admiration is the rarest and best of pleasures? And what if, as I wish I in Rand could have seen, I wrote a letter to her too, by the way. I was in an I in Rand kick in the late 70s. I read Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead and for the new intellectual and romantic manifesto. I mean, I was absolutely blown away by this woman and her atheistic philosophy because she felt to me that close to mythology called Christian Hedonism. And she could not get over her view of God as only into weak altruism. I wish I had an hour with her. I sent her a 20 page letter. Here's another little parenthesis, just show you how vain I am. I'm just, this is confession time, right? So a few years she died in 19, I think 82, I'm not sure, she died. And that's real sad. I don't know whether she came to Christ, no evidence that she did. I was at Luther Seminary Bookstore one day and I thought, I wonder if there's a major biography since she's died. I'm not reading her anymore. I'm not into the I in Rand. I had that period and it's over. I learned a lot and that was helpful. So I went to the biography section and I found one big fat biography of I in Rand. And guess what I did? I looked up my name in the index. (Laughter) Now, I'm confessing I'm a vain person. That wasn't my main motive. I hope, I hope. I'm sure there was vignity in it. I wanted to see if she got the letter. (Laughter) And I was there. It just blew me away. I was in the index of this book. So I turned heart-bumping to see what it was. So I turned to the page and I was in a footnote. And it said, I in Rand had an incredibly broad influence, even on fundamentalists, like John Piper. (Laughter) Now, I think the only way they could have known that is by my letter. So I do have hope that it made it there. But close that parent. Sorry. That was... (Laughter) Back to the beginning of that sentence. What if, as atheist I in Rand once said, "Admiration is the rarest and best of pleasures?" And what if, as I wish I in Rand could have seen, God really is the most admirable being in the universe? Would this not imply that God's summons for our praise is the summons for our highest joy? And if the success of that summons cost him the life of his son, would that not be love instead of arrogance? The reason the Bible gives why God should be greatly praised is that he is great. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is more admirable than anything he has made. That is what it means to be God. Moreover, the Bible says that praise overflowing heartfelt admiration is a pleasure. Praise the Lord for it is good to sing praises to our God for it is pleasant, Psalm 147-1. And this pleasure is the best there is and it lasts forever. In God's presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand or pleasures forever more. The upshot of this is that God's demand for supreme praise is his demand for our supreme happiness. Deep in our hearts we know that we are not made to be made much of. We are not made to be made much of. We are made to make much of something great. And the best joys are when we forget ourselves and are enthralled with greatness. And the greatest greatness is God's greatness. Every good that ever thrilled the heart of man is amplified 10,000 times in God. God is in a class by himself. He is the only being for himself. Exaltation is essential to love. If he humbly sent us away from his beauty, suggesting we find our joy in another, we would be ruined. Great thinkers have said this long before I did. For example, Jonathan Edwards, and I quote a long quote from Edwards, I'll skip it. But I will quote Lewis. C.S. Lewis broke through to the beauty of God's self-exaltation. He broke through grace saving me. It says, in fact, in surprise by joy, he got on a bus one day, went to the top, or the two ducked things, to go to the zoo. And he said, "I know not how, but I got on an unbeliever, and I arrived at the zoo, a believer." That's the way he describes his conversion. I do not know what happened. I had been struggling for years and years with first theism, came thetheist, and then Christianity, as it's recorded in the Bible. And I was kicking and kicking, and by the time I got to the zoo, I was kicking no more. He said, this is the quote now, "My whole more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards to supremely valuable, what we delight to do. Indeed, what we cannot help doing about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy, because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation," end of quote. Both Edward and Lewis saw that praising God is the consummation of joy in God. This joy overflows from the infinite beauty and greatness of God. There is no one who surpasses him in any truly admirable trait. He is absolutely enjoyable, but we are sinners and do not see it. Do not want it. We want ourselves at the center. Jesus Christ taught us to be human in another way, then died for our sin, absorbed God's wrath against it, and opened the way to see and savor God. Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. Therefore, the reason God seeks our praise, Mr. Prowse, is not because He won't be complete until He gets it. He is seeking our praise because we won't be happy until we give it. This is not arrogance. This is love. As you preach, you're preaching to people who need to be helped to understand that. Because the God-centeredness of God, the radical supremacy of God in the heart of God, does not at first blush look like love, and there's a reason for that. The reason is because in America today, maybe I could just say in the world, we have been taught another meaning for being loved. If you ask, you should just do this sometime, just walk through Seattle and go up to people and say, "What does it mean to you to be loved? What does it mean to you to be loved? I think the central answer, this is just a guess from what I've seen, that you're going to hear is, "I feel loved when people pay attention to me when they make much of me, when they make me feel significant when they..." You can be answers like that. As long as that's the way we define being loved, I am loved when I am made much of in marriage or as a child or in education or at work. This is the doctrine of self-esteem in. I am loved when I am made much of. If you bring that to God and you, it won't work. Some people try to make it work, and we talked about that last night, turning the cross into the means of the echo of our excellence. That's not what the cross is. The cross is about, here's my, I'll just give you a quiz. Do you feel more loved by God when he makes much of you or when at the cost of his son's life, he enables you to enjoy making much of him forever? That's turning the American world on its head, and the gospel will never be understood until people see, "Love is the costly effort to do all you can do to throw the beloved with what will make them fully and eternally satisfied." Say it again, "Love is the costly, cost God his son's life, the costly labor or effort to enthrall the beloved with what will bring them full and eternal satisfaction, namely God." Love is not helping people feel good about themselves. It is helping people be enthralled with God. That's what love is. In fact, you can help people feel so good about themselves, they go straight to hell because they do not feel gloriously satisfied with God in their imperfection. Heaven is not a hall of mirrors in which we will like what we see. And faith is not looking in a mirror and liking what you see in the name of Jesus and the cross. Faith treats a mirror like a window shade or window shutter open, and on the other side it sees Jesus and faith goes out of all this concern about me, and it goes out and is satisfied forever with Jesus. So until we get love defined in a God-centered way, we will just make hash out of the gospel. Maybe the best thing I could do here to underline this and to give biblical support to it is to take you to John 11. So would you go with me to the Gospel of John, chapter 11, and we'll read the first six verses. Here's what I'm looking for in the Bible right now. I talk, talk, talk here now, and you should be asking, okay, okay, I just need to show me some Bible. Just give me some verses. That's the way I feel when people talk a lot and it starts to be kind of a big argument developing and seems compelling. You might slip something in on me here that fits the argument, but it doesn't really come out of the book. Okay, so I'm going to back up now and try to take all this talk and ground it in Bible. So here we are, and I'm going to apologize to all of you who have the international version in your hand. I really don't apologize, Frank, I think I've got to get another version. But I say out loud a lot to all my friends who worked on translating the NIV. I think God has used the NIV for the last 30 years to save millions of people and sanctified millions of the people. And bless millions of people. God is God and he loves his word and you can read any version under the sun and be blessed. So, however, I can't make my point in NIV and you'll see it when we get there and it's really appalling what they do. So I asked Mark if I could tell you that and he said, "Well, it's okay." Now, a certain man was sick, verse 1, chapter 11, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair whose brother Lazarus was sick. Now, the reason verse 2 is really interesting is because that hasn't happened yet in the Gospel of John. Isn't that interesting? This is the Mary who did that and I'll tell you about that in chapter 12. And I think the reason he inserts verse 2 here even though he hasn't told us this story is because it's one of the best ways he can communicate how he feels, how Jesus felt about this family. This is the Mary who anointed his feet and took her long hair and watched him. This is that Mary. So here, here, love, hear love in this verse. We're going to see it two more times, verse 3. So the sisters sent word to him saying, "Lord, he whom you love," there's another one. "He whom you love is sick," that's Lazarus, verse 4. But when Jesus heard this, he said, "This sickness is not to death, not to end in death, but for the glory of God." So that the Son of God may be glorified by it. Now, we have two things that I want. I'm looking in the Bible to see how love relates to glory or how God's love for us relates to his seeking glory. And I've got both pieces here now. This is a really huge issue in this text and for me. Verse 5. Now, Jesus loved, so now three times we've been pointed to love and one big time, actually twice in one verse, we've been pointed to the fact that Jesus says this sickness is all about the glory of God. This moment right now is all about love. That sickness is all about the glory of God. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And here is where we have the translation problem. If you have the NIV, I think your verse 6 begins with the word "yet." "Yet" is the opposite of what this verse means, not the meaning of the verse, because "yet" makes Christ's delay adverse to his love. The right translation, all you Greek knowers, test me here, it's just a little word, "oon." Amakran Oopsalan knew every first year Greek student knows "oon" means "tell me somebody." Therefore, or so, it's an inference. It's drawn out from. It's not adverse to, it's flowing out of. That's the word. So, most translations get it right and say, verse 6, "so when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was." That's very jarring. Let's put verses 5 and 6 together so you can feel the jarring connection. Now, Jesus loved Lazarus, who's about to die. Therefore, he waits two days before he goes. You read Don Carson on this verse in his John commentary. And he makes exactly the point I'm making here. Love is being expressed in letting Lazarus die. That is the clear meaning of this text. And shocking that John would record it so plainly for us. He loved Martha, he loved Mary, he loved Lazarus, he's sick, and therefore he didn't go heal him. Therefore, he didn't go heal him, but let him die. So, he even did four days when he gets there. Smells Sister Seth. Now, you've got to come to terms with that. And here's the way I try to come to terms with it. The display of the glory of God is a form of love. I don't know any other way to handle this verse. He loves him, he loves him, he loves him, he loves him. He's dying. Therefore, he doesn't go heal him because answer verse 4. Jesus said this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified. Jesus says, I'm not going to heal your brother. I'm going to let him die twice. Because I want to display my glory. The only way to make sense out of that so that you can love this Christ, and admire this Christ, is to say what this text clearly implies. Displaying the glory of Christ is more loving than keeping people from dying. Winning people to see the glory of Christ as their treasure and embrace it is more loving than healing them from sickness and saving their lives. It's more loving that someone do that to you. When God, this may help us make more sense out of the suffering issue that I've preached about earlier. When God brings into your life, or days that it come into your life, suffering and pain, it isn't because he doesn't love you. It's somehow he sees more glory is going to be seen from him and shown to the world. Now, you might say, this is a narrative text, and narratives are a little bit tricky in drawing doctrine from them. You just might be reading too much in here. True, I might. I don't think I am. So to confirm it, let's go to chapter 17. Let's go to John 17 and see whether or not what I've drawn out of that, therefore, at the beginning of verse 6, is, in fact, the way Jesus thinks. I'm going to assume that you agree with me that the high priestly pair of Jesus, which is the entirety of chapter 17, is a loving thing to pray, because Jesus is loving. Everything he does is love, especially last night, especially to his own. So let's read the first five verses, and you should be asking the question. All right? He loves me. He's about to pray for me. And unless you think I'm jumping over 20 centuries and say, oh, he's really not praying for us. He's praying for his disciples, then. Look at verse 20. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe on me through their word. That's you. I am amazed at this chapter. Oh, I love this chapter. This is the one chapter in the Bible where Jesus says to me, explicitly, I'm praying this for you, because you believed on me through the word of the apostles. He had me in view. He had you in view. So come to this chapter with trembling and excitement. Oh, what did he pray for me? He loves me. What did he ask God to do for me here? What does love look like for me here? And the first five verses just blow you away because nobody defines love this way until they've been reprogrammed by the Bible. So let's read the first five verses. Jesus had spoken these words. When he spoke in these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son. That's his first request and it's prayer for you. Glorify your son. Me. That the son may glorify you. So we got a Trinitarian conspiracy of glory going on here. The son gets glorified and in the glory of the son, the father gets glorified and the Holy Spirit is the infinite personal energy standing for. But there's a person mediating that joy and glory back and forth. I mean, this is one mega energy glory going on here. And he's asking that the father would do that first. Verse two, "Since you have given him authority over all flesh, you have eternal life." And you stop there. Oh, yes. I got that. I like that. Eternal life. That's John 3 16. Now we're talking love language. I want eternal life. And if he gives me that, I feel loved. Keep reading. "Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all you have given him, this is eternal life that they may know you." Eternal life is all about knowing God. It's all about knowing God that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus whom you have sent. No God, no me and no of course in that big Adam knew Eve and she conceived that kind of knowing. Verse four, "I glorified you on earth." There it is again. "I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work you gave me to do." And now Father, comes again, glorify me in your own presence that the glory that I had with you before the world existed. So the first five verses of his high priestly prayer for all those who would believe on him through the apostolic word you, the first five things he asked for, or five verses worth of things, his father glorified me, glorified me, glorified me. What kind of prayer is that for us? Everything. Everything. Because of verse 24. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory. Can you finish this message? You should be able to finish this message. You see that? What was he doing in those first five verses, glorified me? Don't leave me in this fallen flesh. Don't leave me in the grave. Bring me triumphant over death and the devil and sin. Oh, bring me out triumphant and restore to me the magnificent unparalleled beauty and glory and value that I had with you forever. Because if you don't, what are they going to see? What will they enjoy forever? We will consign them to second rate satisfactions on the earth or in the new heavens and the new earth. If they don't have me, what will they have? This is love. This is Christ exalting love from Christ. He is the one being in the universe for whom self exaltation is the most loving act. Nobody may copy him in this. You just gotta work for years to help your church get God centered to make sense out of things like this because they come to our churches so absolutely absorbed with themselves. It takes years sometimes to build categories of thinking into people who have been inebriated with self. I mean, it's just everywhere. It's the air we breathe in this country. Self, self, self, self. And here comes Jesus exalting himself that we may have somebody to admire because admiration is the highest of pleasures. We get the joy. He gets the glory. It's amazing. And so one last step in my argument, namely this. All the things that the cross accomplished, that we usually preach as the gospel, all of them are not the whole gospel until people see that the good news is that God by faith alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, on the basis of Christ's righteousness and blood alone, to the glory of God alone sinners are enabled to enjoy God forever. That's the end of the gospel. And if you don't get there, the gospel is truncated. And I wanted to just walk through briefly some of those gospel precious truths that need to be bent upward and finished with God. The gospel offers and Christ purchased freedom from the sting of death. Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory. And we preach servants, there will be no triumph of death. So what? If you're worshiping yourself on the other side of death. So what? That's not the gospel yet. People don't want to die. Why? Because they love God. No. It's just like what they're doing. And they would like it not to end or be picked up on the other side. Better. God, he doesn't have to be in the picture. So to preach a text like that. Yes. Death destroyed. We haven't gotten to the good news yet. We can leave people right in their self-centeredness on the other side of death. The gospel, secondly, offers freedom from the triumph of Satan since therefore the children share in flesh and blood. He himself likewise took the same nature in order that he might destroy him who has the power of death. That is the devil. We can preach a great sermon. The devil is defeated. He cannot destroy you anymore. Your foot is on his neck. Roman 1625. Amen and amen. And we haven't gotten to the gospel yet. Not the end of the gospel. Because who cares if the devil is under our foot? The devil serves people in lots of nice ways. He has two ways to get people in trouble. One is to give them pain and the others to give them pleasure. And he does it both ways depending on what he thinks will work best. And so as long as he's doing the pleasure thing, people are really happy. Or if he's making green things crawl across the ceiling, they're happy to put their foot on his neck and the green things go away. And now we can just sleep better. And that's not the gospel. The defeat of the devil is not yet the God-exalting news that we are meant to enjoy God. Third, the gospel offers the deliverance from wrath to come, 1 Thessalonians 110. We wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come who does not want the wrath of God to be taken away. But whether or not the removal of wrath for my life is going to be replaced by being satisfied in God is a totally different question. Just get wrath off of me. Thank you. And I will enjoy golf in the kingdom forever. Many people have pictures of heaven that are just the extension of their favorite fast times. And God can go on a vacation as far as they're concerned as long as he leaves behind the greens. And I hold in one every night there. Fourth, the gospel provides forgiveness and the freedom from guilt. Amen. I love it. I'm not making right of these things. These are precious biblical truths. You understand that, don't you? I am not belittling these gospel truths. I'm saying finish them. When you preach them, finish them, take them to God. So why do you want to be forgiven? I mean, you preach in this church or any church. Christ died to take away guilt. You've got an audience. Believe me. Everybody's guilty. Some are soaking it in all kinds of ways, trying to drown it, trying to drug it, trying to work it away, trying to play it away, trying to guru it away. Just all kinds of crazy things to get this guilt late night horrible dark black feeling off of me if Jesus does that outcome. And they're not safe yet. Maybe. They might be. But the question is, have they seen through that as removing an obstacle to having God or just getting my bad feelings out of my head, please. I mean, picture my wife. All right. This is an easiest one to illustrate. So I get up in the morning. No, well, we're there 36 years this December. And I trip over a pile of laundry. I thought I asked you to put that away last night. That's a bad way to start a morning. Really bad way to start a morning. So I'm in the bathroom. She's gone without talking to me, gone downstairs to the kitchen. And I'm realizing there's ice in this house. And I have just messed up this day big time. And I'm coming down. She's at the sink clanking dishes. The back distinctly told me and I'm thinking what I would really like here is to be forgiven. So humble myself, eat my pride, admit that I didn't do that. Yes, she should have had it. No, that will work. So you kiss her on the back of the neck and it pulls away. Ooh, this is really bad. Now, just here's the question. What do I want? You say forgiveness. That's right. But I ask you, who cares about forgiveness unless it's the doorway to be embraced? I mean, if she says I forgive you. Turn around. Kiss me. I want you back. I want you back. Now, there is what's got to happen in the evangelistic service. You can't just say, okay, it feels rotten in this house and I want a lot of bad feelings to go away. You stay at sink if you want to because I'm going to have fun at work because now little bad feelings and I'm feeling really good. It doesn't honor her. Forgiveness is all about bringing two beings together in love and enjoying one another again. And if that doesn't happen between you and God and forgiveness is just get the bad feelings out of my head. Salvation hasn't happened. We can preach such amazing messages without taking people to the pleasures that they should have in God. Here's another one. The gospel provides all that all will work together for our good. Romans 8, 28. All things work together for good. So what? Good. What's good? I mean, I'll be sick and I'll have all I need and the family will be straight. I'm really happy when we're on day 28. Everything works together for my good. And until you say, God is your good, the gospel hasn't been preached. Or the gospel provides Christ-imputed righteousness. Well, who cares about that, right? I mean, so I'm now counted righteousness in Christ. I'm now counted perfect in Jesus. And now I'll just go out and keep sin and like the devil because it really tastes good. So imputed righteousness is not yet the gospel until it's seen as a way of closing with God, enjoying God, embracing God. God provides fine and eternal healing and health as they are 53.5. But He was wounded for our transgressions, crossfire and iniquities upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with His stripes we're here. You can see He preached this great message on, "If not now, someday the stripes on Jesus back are going to make you whole and you will have all crying, all tears, all pain, all sickness, all depression taken away in the kingdom." And they're like, "Yes, yes, yes." And whether or not God happens to be the treasure when you're healthy, it hasn't even been addressed yet. So how do you know that they're embracing this call for Christ-bought health with any God-exalting delight in God until you push God as the center and goal? And the list could go on and on. You're getting the idea. Just all the things, prayer answered, eternal life and so on, but I'll stop and close with a quote from Jonathan Edwards and accomplish many two things by it. I really want some of you to know that my heart goes out to you as those who are listening who do not delight in God. And maybe by grace and by the Holy Spirit here are trembling that you had thought you had embraced the Gospel stavingly and you didn't because you've never broken through. It's all been about you. Your forgiveness and your guilt going away and your healing and your living forever and you're not being troubled by the devil and you're not going to hell. And God's just never been the treasure. I hope that as I read this closing quote from a 18th century preacher that God will do a miracle right now and awaken the affection of your heart for him. The other thing I hope to accomplish is to get you to read Edwards because, like I said, nobody writes like this because nobody sees God like this. So I read it and yep that's the last page of my notes so I'm going to be done as soon as I'm done reading it and I'll pray. The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to possess and enjoy by redemption. He is the highest good and the sum of all that good with God purchased, which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints. He's the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament, their diadem and their everlasting honor and glory. They have none in heaven but God. He is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death and which they are to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God, He is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem and is the river of the water of life that runs and the tree of life that grows in the midst of the paradise of God. The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things. They will enjoy angels and will enjoy one another but that which they shall enjoy in angels or in each other or in anything else whatsoever that shall yield them delight and happiness will be what they see of God in them. Let's pray. So Lord I pray that you would come and not just make people want to be forgiven and not just make people want to have guilt removed, not just make people want to live forever in a new heavens and a new earth. Not just make people want to be well and have their depression and their sickness is lifted and taken away forever. Not just freed from the torments of the devil, not just removed from the fear of death. Lord I pray that beyond through in all that you would be the center, the goal from Him, through Him and to Him to you Father are all things to you. Be the glory through our satisfaction forever and ever. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit desiring God online at www.desiringGod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again our website is www.desiringGod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God 20601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
John Piper | All the glorious benefits of the gospel, such as forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and triumph over the powers of darkness, are not the highest good of the gospel but a means to enjoying God himself.