A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview John Piper. I promptly solicited questions from you, the readers of this site, and Pastor John was kind enough to answer them. Because the focus of this year’s Desiring God National Conference is sanctification, I asked him questions related to that subject. In this interview he discusses why sanctification is not an instantaneous act, how we can emphasize personal toil in holiness without diminishing the goodness and sovereignty of God, why we need to continue to confess our sins to God, and how we can know if we are growing in sanctification. If you read only one of the answers, be sure it is the final one!

What is God’s purpose in making sanctification a lifelong pursuit rather than an instantaneous act at the moment of conversion?

First, I agree with the assumption that this is true. God does do this. That is, he intentionally does not conquer all our sins in an instant, though he could. He could perfect us now. We know this because he is going to do it when we die. We will not sin in heaven. We will be among "the spirits of the righteous made perfect" (Heb. 12:23).

And we know that God will finally throw Satan into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10) and take away his influence in the new world entirely. If he will do it then, he could do it now. But he doesn't. He gives Satan leash. So why is Satan allowed to rage, and why does God let us go on stumbling toward holiness?

I am not aware of any text in the Bible that answers this question explicitly. So we answer with inferences from God's broader statements of purpose. The largest answer is that God does all things for the greater display of his glory, and so this too must be for his glory.

One clue to make this more specific comes from Romans 9:22-23. Paul asks rhetorically, "What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy?"

Desiring God Ministries has posted John Piper’s long-awaited interview with Rick Warren. This has brought to completion the invitation Piper extended to Warren to speak at the 2010 Desiring God National Conference. The interview was supposed to happen at that event, but in the end Warren was unable to travel to Minneapolis and the interview was postponed. The men got together on May 1, 2011 and this video is the result.

Today I want to offer up some thoughts on it. I do so because over the years I have come out as a bit of a critic of Rick Warren and his ministry. This is not something I am entirely comfortable with, but it was no surprise to me that when the interview was posted I began to receive questions; people wanted to know what I thought of it. And, frankly, I wanted to know what I thought of it. So what I intend to do in this article is simply let you into my mind as I wrestle through the interview and its implications.

Before I begin, let me say a word about critiquing Warren. Many people seem to imagine that there is some kind of a Calvinist conspiracy against Rick Warren. I will grant that there are many outrageous critics out there who seem to put Warren in the same league as Jezebel and Judas. Despite such people there are many others who have good, legitimate critiques of the man and his ministry. I think we need to be careful that we do not combine these 2 groups--that we do not ignore legitimate critiques because of the outrageous ones.

Having said that, let me tell you where my mind went as I watched and read the interview. I am very glad to hear from you whether my thinking has gone off-track or if I am just plain wrong. The comments are open and I will be reading them as I am able.

1. Awareness

I find myself aware of my youth. As I begin to think through this issue I immediately realize that both of these men are old enough to be my father and I want to be very careful that I do not play the role of the impulsive, self-assured, prideful young(er) man. The Bible commends age and maturity and this leaves me inclined to doubt my own interpretation when it conflicts with those who are older than I am. Both of these men have far more knowledge of Scripture than I do and both have much greater ministry experience. Both have obviously been used by the Lord in unique ways.

So John Piper has asked Rick Warren to speak at this year’s Desiring God National Conference, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God. You may have heard about this, either through buzz in the blogosphere or even from Piper himself in his recent Ask Pastor John session. I have known this for some time now as Warren told me himself when I visited Saddleback last September. So I have had a long time to reflect on it. And having done so, I am persuaded that it is not a good idea.

Before I explain myself, let me provide a bit of background on my relationship with Rick Warren and John Piper. I think people who read this site sometimes imagine that I am more connected with the big-name preachers or authors than is really the case. It’s only fair to point out that I do not have much of a personal relationship with either man. I have met both of them but have spent meaningful time with each of them just once, which means I know them best through their public ministries. I have read three books by Warren and perhaps a dozen by Piper. I have seen both of them preach and have met some of the people who minister alongside them. Perhaps mostly significantly, I have been a member of churches heavily influenced by each of them; the last church I attended was very much built around the Saddleback model while Grace Fellowship Church is very much in debt to Piper. Thus I have seen their churches, their ministries and the effects of their ministries on others.

Last week I began an interview series I am calling “Meet the Ministries.” This is an opportunity for us to meet some of the Christian ministries available to serve us. The first interview featured Grace to You. This week I’m glad to share an interview with Matt Perman, Director of Strategy for Desiring God.

How and when did Desiring God begin?
Desiring God as an organization began in 1994. An elderly couple had been in charge of the weekly sermon tape ministry since John Piper began preaching in 1980. But in 1994, they suddenly decided to retire. So John Piper went to his ministry assistant at the time, Jon Bloom, and said “I’d like you to take over the tape ministry.”

As Jon Bloom gave this some thought, it stood out to him that more and more people were contacting the church requesting John Piper’s books, sermon tapes, articles, and other resources. These requests were all being handled by different staff members.

So after a few days of praying and pondering these things, he went to John Piper and suggested that they create a coordinated, proactive strategy for using resources to spread the vision of God that so many of us have come to love through John’s preaching and writing.

John Piper said, “That’s a great idea! We could call it Desiring God Ministries.” The name of the ministry comes from John’s foundational 1986 book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, which basically articulates the core concepts that we are about.

Jon Bloom became the first person on staff and things continued to develop from there. Jon remains the executive director today. He is the best at telling this story, and was recently interviewed by Tim Smith of Mars Hill church in Seattle on how DG started.

Why does DG exist? What are its chief goals and key emphases?
Desiring God exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. That’s our mission and reason for being.

We believe that God is supreme in everything. Further, his supremacy is most clearly seen not simply when we know truth about him, but when we also delight in Him. The things of God are very great; but this greatness is not reflected if we remain neutral about God or carry on as if nothing is different.

For example, if I bring my wife flowers on our anniversary and say “no big deal, Heidi, it’s my duty,” she is not honored. But she is honored if I say to her, “I love being married and I’m so glad it’s our anniversary.”

Likewise, when we rejoice in and treasure God - rather than remain neutral or devoid of any emotional response - He is honored. He is shown to be great (which is the purpose of life, by the way) and worthy of praise.

Here’s how we put it: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

It follows from this that joy is not simply icing on the cake. Rather, we ought to seek joy. We ought to seek joy. This is what the Scriptures command (Psalm 37:4; Matthew 6:21; Philippians 4:4; Psalm 97:12) and model (Philippians 3:8; Psalm 43:4; Hebrews 12:2). Yet so often the idea has crept into the church that somehow it is bad to want to be happy. That desiring to be happy is sinful.

But the problem with the human race is not that we want to be happy. The problem is that we seek happiness in the wrong things-in things outside of God (see, for example, Jeremiah 2:13). And the great irony here is that this results in less satisfaction.

It results in less satisfaction because those things ultimately cannot satisfy. The idea is often out there that the most exciting life and the greatest happiness comes from following the values of the world—either for outright sin or domesticated comfort—and that if you become a Christian you must give up the desire to be happy and perhaps even settle for a boring life.

But this is exactly backwards. The greatest satisfaction is in God, not outside of God. When we aim for the joy that the world offers, we are settling for less, not more. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The problem is not that our desires are too strong , but too weak.” Then he continues: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the sand because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

So Desiring God is here to say: The desire to be happy is good, not sinful. That is not your problem. But stop seeking your satisfaction in temporary, fleeting pleasures that have no value. Seek real and ultimate satisfaction. Pursue your joy in God, who is supreme in all things and the only lasting source of joy.

One last thing here: This message is not contrary to the also very biblical emphasis that a life of radical service for God and others often involves suffering, and that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Instead, this truth is precisely what enables us to bear up under suffering.

We are able to endure suffering and in fact “rejoice in our suffering” (Romans 5:3) because our joy and hope are in God, not the world. So even when everything goes wrong, we can be like the saints in Hebrews who joyfully endured their trials because they knew that they “had a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34) or like Moses who “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:26).

The message of Christian hedonism is not a chipper happiness, but a deep-seated joy in God that therefore enables us to engage in radical deeds of love and to truly grieve over the brokenness in the world. We are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

How can DG serve the readers of this web site?
I love this question because it gets at a few more of our dominant emphases as a ministry.

We have made all 29 years of John Piper’s sermons, conference messages, articles, and even books (except when a publisher wouldn’t let us) available on our website for free and without registration.

We did this because it is one of the most effective ways that we know how to fulfill our mission to spread a passion for the supremacy of God by helping people fan the flame of their joy in God.

So I would say to your readers: Our website is at your service. Everything is there and everything is free because our aim is not to make money, but to help you find your joy in God.

So read, listen, and watch the resources whenever, wherever, and however you want to help fuel your joy in God. If you are interested in some specific ones that you might want to start with, here are a few that I would recommend:

• If you are interested in a book, you might enjoy Desiring God or Don’t Waste Your Life. Again, you can read both of these online for free, along with many others.
• If you are interested in a sermon or conference message, I would recommend Passion for the Supremacy of God part 1 and part 2 or A Passion for the Supremacy of Christ—Where He is Not Named. Each of these messages can be either read or listened to.
• If you are interested in an article, I might recommend Rebuilding Some Basics at Bethlehem: Christian Hedonism or Thoughts on Why Everything Exists.
• If you are interested in a biography, I might recommend reading or listening to Piper’s biography on the life of William Wilberforce.
• If you are interested in browsing all of our resources by topic or Scripture, or browse through all of the sermons by date, you can do that as well.

You may also be interested in subscribing to our blog. And if there is a product that you want to buy but which you don’t have the funds for, please make use of our whatever-you-can-afford policy.

Why do you post everything online for free?
When you asked about how Desiring God could serve the readers of this site, I pointed to our website. So it makes sense for me to talk a little bit more about why we post everything for free and how this relates to our view of serving.

The call to be God-centered entails a call to serve others before yourself. The two greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40). Jesus said that he came “not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28). And Paul said “let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 4:4) and pointed to Jesus as an example (4:5ff).

It can be easy to think that this applies only to us as individuals—that individuals should put others first, but organizations are different. They should focus on survival.

But that’s not how we think. We want to follow the example of Christ organizationally as well as individually. We want the grace and mercy of Christ to be reflected as fully as possibly in what we say and in what we do.

So Desiring God is here first of all to serve. Survival is not our first priority. We do not exist to exist. We exist to be of use to others in the building up of their faith. And so we will do this even at cost to ourselves.

This is why one of our core principles that we don’t want money to be a hindrance to people. To help keep money from being an obstacle, we’ve had a “whatever-you-can-afford” policy from the start, and that’s why when we got to the point where we were able to post all of John Piper’s sermon audio online, we posted it all for free.

We don’t believe that this is the only way to do things. But for us, this is the best way that we know how to demonstrate the gospel in what we do, in addition to what we say.

A corollary of these things is that we aim to reduce all obstacles—that is, all friction—to spreading, not just the monetary ones. By doing this, more people can access the resources and spread them more effectively.

Consequently, our vision when it comes to the internet is that we post everything online, for free, without requiring registration, in a maximally usable interface.

Each of these four things goes to the issue of removing all possible friction that might slow down or hinder the process of spreading. If you don’t put everything online, but only some things, there are helpful resources that people won’t be able to access at all. If you make people have to pay to access material online, you introduce friction into the process and slow down spreading.

And if you wall up your content behind a registration gate, you similarly introduce friction into the process and many people will just move on to something else rather than deal with the hassle of registration.

Another source of friction that is not as obvious, however, is a hard-to-use website. If a website is hard to use, people will have a much more difficult time finding the resources that will be most useful to them. They will waste time and energy trying to figure out how to use the site rather than being able to focus completely on the content itself.

So when we undertook our major website redesign a few years ago, we made usability the core, governing philosophy of the redesign. We re-architected the site from the ground up on the basis of principles of usability so that the site would hopefully be as easy to use as possible and, consequently, introduce as little friction as possible into the process of accessing resources.

Our aim behind all of these things is to remove all friction to accessing our content because we believe that is the right thing to do, we believe it best reflects the gospel for us, and we believe it best serves people.

Who are the key leaders within the ministry?
Other than John Piper and the board of directors that oversees the ministry, some of the key leaders in the ministry are: Jon Bloom, executive director; John Knight, director of development; Terry Kurschner , director of finance; Matt Perman, director of strategy; Scott Anderson, director for networks & partnerships; Lukas Naugle, director of resource productions; and Eric Johnson, director of marketing and internet.

How many employees does DG have?
We have 38 employees plus about 50 regular volunteers.

What is DG’s annual budget? How is the ministry financed and how do you ensure financial integrity?
Our annual budget is currently $5.5 million. About half of our budget is financed through donations. The rest of our budget is financed through resource sales, conferences, and the bookstore that we run at conferences and at the church. Also, John Piper donates all of his book royalties to the ministry and takes no salary from Desiring God.

In regard to the donation side of things: Our donations largely come from what we call “an army of small donors” rather than a few large donors.

Some of these donors have chosen to be a part of what we call the “Philippian Fellowship.” Basically, this is a group of about 2,100 friends of the ministry who have committed to faithful pray and/or give financially to the ministry. Members of the Philippian Fellowship receive weekly prayer requests and other information as well.

The ministry of Desiring God would not be possible without our donors. When I say that our aim is to serve, not be served, I don’t mean that we have the misguided notion that we can do this by ourselves. I mean that we are not in this for what we can get out of it. And that our desire in all that we do is to see people benefit, not increase donations. But we do need donations in order to continue. Those who share the vision of what we do are critical partners in the ministry. And I think that one of the things that they value about Desiring God is that we are not about money.

We ensure financial integrity through several means. The independent consulting audit firm, Larson Allen, currently advises us on internal controls and conducts our annual audit. We are members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. And our director of finance, Terry Kurschner, is a man of incredible integrity and detail whom we are blessed to have over our finances.

How do you expect DG will be different in ten years? Twenty years?
It is really hard to say on this, because we couldn’t have even seen where we would be today back ten years prior. And the pace of change in the external environment has only increased. So we have a few principles that guide us in the way we go about discovering the future which I will share.

First, our mission and values govern everything that we do. Along with our affirmation of faith, they constitute our “core.” The core provides the constant that you need to successfully navigate change and to develop in a way that is effective and remains in alignment with your DNA.

Having a core is critical to remaining adaptable and flexible. In fact, as Jim Collins has argued, the fundamental dynamic of any organization that is effective over time is the concept of preserve the core and stimulate progress—and to create mechanisms that weave this dynamic into the fabric of the organization.

This principle doesn’t tell us how things will change, but gives us something more important: an understanding of how to move forward into a future that is radically changing for all types of organizations. Critical to DG in all stages will always be our mission to spread.

Second, DG develops more like a story than a blueprint. We didn’t know or plan—indeed, couldn’t have known or planned—what things would be like today when we started 15 years ago. So our approach is not to blueprint out a future that we cannot control anyway. The result would be a lot of frustration, dead ends, and wasted time.

Instead, one of the key ways to progress in the midst of ambiguity is through incremental progress. That is, through a few tangible mechanisms that drive progress while acknowledging that we are very limited in what we can know about the needs and context of the future environment.

One of those mechanisms—which arose naturally at DG from the very start—is the principle of “try a lot of stuff and keep what works.” You don’t know what will always be best in advance, so you try a lot of things. The things that work, you keep and build on. And by that means, the organization develops and advances incrementally according to what it is good at and what is needed.

This is one of the fundamental ways to “build on strengths,” which Peter Drucker rightly said all organizations must do. And it allows you to adapt intelligently to the future, without having to think you can predict it.

Third, and closely related to this, are the talents and strengths of our people. We believe that people are most effective for an organization when you put them in positions where they can play to their strengths.

Your strengths are what you are good at, what you love doing, and which align with the goals of the organization. As people focus on their strengths, new capabilities and initiatives develop, and these are the lines along which Desiring God has largely grown over the last 15 years.

Fourth, the concept of evolutionary progress, like a story, is best complemented by a twin principle of discontinuous and intentional progress. A good example here is that of setting a big, clear, compelling, and even audaciously large goal that focus the organization on accomplishing a certain major task over the long-term. Jim Collins calls these “BHAGs” in his very helpful book Built to Last.

Having a big goal like this aligns the organization and creates unity and collaboration, and a sense of excitement. It also gives concrete intentionality to the future of the organization.

At the same time, like the concept of evolutionary progress, BHAGs reflect the fact the future cannot be largely known or controlled by us. A BHAG does not attempt to script out or blueprint your future in detail.

Rather, a BHAG defines the broad strokes, and evolutionary progress fills in the rest of the details. In this way, you combine intentionality with flexibility, charting a course without defining everything in advance, and thus remaining adaptable to an uncertain future environment.

I think that this also best reflects the fact that God is sovereign over the future, not us, while also upholding the fact that we are indeed to be intentional and make plans (Proverbs 16:9).

I don’t want to belabor this point, but Collins has a great statement in Built to Last on how Jack Welch utilized this combination of intentionality with organic growth at GE:

Instead of directing a business according to a detailed … strategic plan, Welch believed in setting only a few clear, overarching goals. Then, on an ad hoc basis, his people were free to seize any opportunities they saw to further those goals. This crystallized in his mind after reading Johannes von Moltke, a nineteenth century Prussian general influenced by the renowned military theorist Karl von Clausewitz, who argued that detailed plans usually fail, because circumstances inevitably change.

I think that is very helpful, and biblical.

We came to an understanding of our 5- to 10- year BHAG a few years ago, which we’ve expressed in a one-page document that we call our “vision statement.” Here’s our current BHAG:

We want to see millions of people around the world more accurately understand the Bible and increase in their love for Jesus Christ by reading, listening to, and watching our resources at the times and locations that are most helpful to them, and eagerly sharing these resources with others.

In pursuit of this vision we will, joyfully and by God’s grace, develop an integrated global distribution network that makes our resources accessible at any time, at the lowest strategic cost, in the most effective formats, to the most effective spreaders.

We can do better at communicating this constantly among the staff here, and I’m working at mechanisms for doing that right now as we speak.

But wherever we end up in ten or twenty years, it will likely be somewhere along the lines of the aim we have expressed in this BHAG, plus whatever comes about as a result of the evolutionary progression of the Desiring God story and allowing our staff to work within their strengths.

And all of the progress, growth, and development that happens will be in alignment with, not contrary to, our core. We will preserve the core and stimulate progress.

How does DG work with other Christian ministries?
We want to see every sound ministry be as effective as possible. We see ourselves as one small piece of a much larger picture of what God is doing. And we want to see the entirety of God’s kingdom flourish and advance. So we are eager to do whatever we can to serve the wider picture of God’s work in the world.

To get to specifics here, there are a few things. First, it really stands out to me that there is at present a truly remarkable spirit of camaraderie among gospel-centered ministries. Part of this is reflected in the extent to which we are all able to learn from one another and mutually encourage one another. This is largely informal, but it is very significant and, I think, very beneficial.

Second, one of the most significant ways in which we work with other Christian ministries comes through John Piper’s speaking. He invites other pastors, theologians, and ministry leaders to speak at our conferences, and he is often invited to speak at theirs. We have especially significant interaction with the T4G and Gospel Coalition affiliated ministries.

Third, we seek to partner strategically with churches. Our regional conferences, which we hold in various parts of the country once or twice a year, are an example of this. They provide an opportunity to partner with a church or network of churches to carry out the conference and equip people in the church and wider area with resources.

We also partner with churches for large-scale give-aways. Every year, for example, we do a case lot special in which we make a certain book available for about a dollar per book. Churches can purchase these books in case quantities at that rate for the purpose of distributing large numbers of books.

Fourth, we partner with churches and ministries as the opportunity arises for collaborative projects that are strategic for the mission and promoting resources. This is sort of a new area that is developing.

Fifth, our growing international outreach division is entirely based upon the premise of partnerships. Our international outreach director, Bill Walsh, looked at the task of helping equip pastors and leaders in the developing world with much-needed resources, and said “if we take a top-down, centralized approach to this task, we will be able to do almost nothing.”

A centralized approach where we, for example, set up offices in different countries and seek to distribute resources would never scale. So the approach we are taking to international outreach is to identify partnerships globally of ministries and churches and individuals that we can equip to do the work of spreading internationally. This is a core philosophy of our international approach.

The last point to make here is that partnerships with other ministries and churches is more and more becoming a major priority for us. It is something that we are pursuing with increasing intentionality and which we see developing in an even more significant way over the next few months and years.

What are some of the ways DG has seen evidence of God’s hand of blessing?
Now this is a tough question, Tim, because the last thing that I want to do is say “hey everyone, look at how God is using us!” We realize that we are quite small, that the office supply budget of a company like Apple is probably larger than our entire annual budget, and that we are imperfect and flawed. But, I see your point and will try to say a few things.

First off, we are grateful for anything and everything that the Lord is doing through our very imperfect efforts. Any good that does come through the ministry of Desiring God is simply grace.

Second, we are amazed at the remarkable people that God has brought on staff at Desiring God. This is a very substantial blessing that may not be the first thing that comes to mind when someone asks how God has blessed the work of the ministry, but it is absolutely critical. We do not take for granted that without the quality and spirituality of the people that we have, we could not do what we do.

Third, he has blessed us with an incredible team of supporters-people who hold the rope for us in prayer or financial giving or both. People are praying for us. And our financial support has been better than expected through these challenging economic times.

Fourth, we see evidence of God’s blessing in the resource spreading that has been happening. The growth over the last four years or so has been especially surprising. At present on our website, we receive about 1 million visits per month and 3 million page views per month. There are about 18 million audio and video streams and downloads per year and 225,000 online product orders per year. There are about 23,000 subscribers on the blog.

Off-line, John Piper has authored more than 40 books, with over 6 million books sold in the United States. There are 226 translated books into 26 languages other than English.

We know that numbers do not automatically equate with the blessing of God, and that numbers are not the most important component of God’s blessing. But that does give a picture of the spreading that God has brought about so far, and for which we are very grateful.

Last of all, and most significant, are the testimonies that people send us. That’s how we really know if we are having an impact. We are blessed and amazed at the stories that come our way from people each day.

Speaking personally, how has working closely with John Piper impacted you as a person?
In more ways than I can count. First of all, John Piper has taught me more about God than anyone else. He has profoundly affected my worldview, which in turn affects everything else.

Second, I learned from John Piper that we should “expect great things from God; attempt great things for God” (William Carey). His emphasis that risk is right and that we should dream dreams for the kingdom rather than coast through life is a constant spur to action for me.

Third, I spoke earlier about how one of the convictions we have is that we are here first to serve, not be served. And that this has ramifications in all sorts of ways and had an impact even on the way we thought about the website when it came time to do the major redesign. This mindset is one of the biggest things I’ve learned from John Piper, and I don’t even think he knows that he models this.

Over the years, often in casual conversation, I started noticing a recurring emphasis. When we’d talk about the website, for example, he would talk about making it easy to use for people - long before I had done any research or reading on the subject, or even knew that there was a body of literature on that (and I don’t think he knew that at the time, either). He would talk about how the importance of anticipating people’s needs and being generally thoughtful. How we shouldn’t wait for there to be a problem to see what we should address; we should think ahead about what people will need and make it right to begin with.

As I mentioned, I don’t think he was trying to teach anything in these comments; he was just describing the way he thought about things. But it would come up in a noticeably frequent way when we would talk about things like the website and such.

I kind of “caught” from this the general principle that trying to anticipate people’s needs and be thoughtful about them is an implication of Christian service and love. If we love God and therefore love others, we will seek to do good for them and serve them - and we will seek to be proactive in doing so.

This has influenced the way I thought about everything—the website (make it usable), our resources (make them free), management (think of serving your employees and the world first, not surviving), the Christian life in general (we are to be consistently and remarkably doing proactive works of good for others and the world), and more.

Everything boils down to: Christians are here to do good for others, to the glory of God. We aren’t here to build up our own comforts, but to expend ourselves in radical deeds of love. This is because God is good, God seeks our welfare, and God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him - and therefore we can risk and let go of comforts here because God is our satisfaction and strength, not the things of this world.

John Piper teaches this explicitly and there are some incredible sermons on these things, but it is the impact of working with John personally that most forcefully and significantly taught me this mindset and gave me this desire. I certainly have a long way to go, but this is how I think and what I aspire to be as much as God will enable.

How can the readers of this web site serve and support DG?
Thanks for asking, Tim. While the most important thing to us is simply that people come to see God for who he is, we absolutely need and cherish the involvement of everyone that feels called to be a part of what we are doing.

There are three main things the readers of this site can do to serve and support DG: Pray, pass the word, and give. In that order.

So if you can only do one thing, pray. If you can do two things, also pass the word. If you can do three things, consider giving and maybe becoming a part of our Philippian Fellowship.

Here’s how you can pray: Pray for John Piper’s speaking and writing; pray for the website and that God would use it to build up his people in joy and faith; pray for wisdom and effectiveness for our growing international outreach department; pray for our staff; pray that we would be faithful to God’s word; pray for our continued efforts in spreading that as many as possible would see the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

If you want to spread the word, here are some resources that you might be most interested in pointing people to:

• Our website or blog
• The message “Let Your Passion be Single,” which is Christian hedonism unpacked in a single message.
• The message “Doing Missions When Dying is Gain.”
• The article “The Goal of God’s Love May Not be What You Think.”
• The sermon “Sustained by Sovereign Grace - Forever”, especially for those who are going through difficult times.
• The book Desiring God or Don’t Waste Your Life.

Desiring God and Crossway have partnered together to create some interesting new products. They have recently released three small group studies which combine lessons on DVD with book-format study guides. I will provide a brief description of each and then share my thoughts on the series:

Why We Believe the Bible. “With the deluge of communication around us—books, newspapers, blogs, journals, and magazines all insisting that their view of the world is most compelling—which should we trust? This is no small question. In fact, our answer has eternal implications. The twelve-session Why We Believe the Bible Study Guide and DVD are designed to help study groups and classes explore the claim that the Bible stands above all others as the book of books, pointing infallibly to the King of kings. Through the DVD teaching of Pastor John Piper and the five guided assignments per week, participants will study biblical texts and discuss probing questions to help them see why the Bible alone is worthy of our confidence.”

An Introduction to TULIP. In this study “John Piper walks study groups through each point in the DVD and its companion Study Guide, discussing the implications and the issues from a fully biblical perspective. Piper’s 30-minute DVD teachings cover topics that include the meaning of “total” in total depravity, doing missions when God is sovereign, Romans 9 and the two wills of God, and ten effects of believing the five points of Calvinism. This sixteen-session, guided group study equips facilitators, teachers, group leaders, and pastors to help their members understand the all-important differences between Calvinism and Arminianism. It also calls them to hold fast to biblical truth regarding God’s salvific work in his people’s lives.”

What’s the Difference? (available very soon from Monergism Books). “John Piper’s six, 30-minute DVD sessions lead groups in discovering what the Bible teaches about true manhood and womanhood and the impact of living out God’s design. ‘Over the years I have come to see from Scripture and from life that manhood and womanhood are the beautiful handiwork of a good and loving God,’ encourages John Piper. ‘He designed our differences, and they are profound.’ Yet when rightly understood according to God’s Word, God’s vision for both men and women ‘is not onerous or oppressive. It does not promote pride or self-exaltation. It conforms to who we are by God’s good design. Therefore it is fulfilling in the deepest sense of that word.’ With this as his context, Piper seeks to commend the beauty as well as the biblical truth of God’s design for men and women in this six-session small-group DVD and its companion Study Guide. Each 30-minute teaching of Piper’s delivers a powerful message to help Sunday school classes, small groups, churches, and families understand and celebrate the freedom of our God-given differences.”

I was pleased to find that these DVDs are not merely sermon excerpts squeezed and pressed into a study format. Instead, they have been (or appear to have been) recorded explicitly for the purpose. Each DVD features John Piper teaching from a stage (with a pulpit and overhead projector), leading the audience into a deeper appreciation of the subject. So these are not sermons as much as they are seminars. Therefore, it is a very natural context in which to participate via DVD either as an individual or as a small group. The Study Guide, which is both useful and well-written (never a given for Study Guides) offers a day-by-day format, which allows each lesson to extend over a week. And they are meaty, going far beyond the quick, the obvious and the unbearably light in the questions they ask and the concepts they cover. Do note that while the Study Guides will enhance the DVD, they are by no means necessary and the DVDs stand well on their own.

Whether you buy them for personal study, family study or small group study (or perhaps even homeschool study for high school students) these DVDs and associated study guides are well worth owning. The DVDs are slick, professional and well-produced and, of course, filled with great content. The books are also very well-made and well-written, majoring on the majors and enhancing the media content. These DVDs and Study Guides are a great addition to any personal or church library and I highly recommend them.

John Piper’s second (and final) session was taken from John 3 and dealt with the topic of preaching the doctrine of regeneration undiminished. This is just the briefest overview. You know the audio will be available at the Desiring God site before the day is over.

Piper’s outline followed this pattern: What happens in the new birth; why the new birth is so necessary; how it happens.

What Happens in the New Birth?
Life happens! God does not give new religion, but new life. Jesus knows that there are religious dead people and that Nicodemus is one of them; he knows that Nicodemus needs to be born, to be given life. When you are born of the flesh, all you are is flesh; you are humanity minus God. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit—which means you do not have a living spirit now (because you are dead). The Holy Spirit needs to come upon you and breathe this new life into you. We are now spiritually alive.

Why Is the New Birth So Necessary?
Piper offered ten biblical descriptions of man apart from the new birth, ten reasons we need to be born again. As bad as the news is, it’s glorious to get it right because there is a glorious remedy. When we properly understand our own badness, we see Christ more gloriously.

Apart from the new birth we are dead
Apart from the new birth we are by nature children of wrath
Apart from the new birth we love darkness and hate light
Apart from the new birth we have hearts that are hard like stone
Apart from the new birth we are unable to submit to God
Apart from the new birth we are unable to except the gospel
Apart from the new birth we are unable to come to Christ or embrace him as Lord
Apart from the new birth we are slaves to sin
Apart from the new birth we are slaves of Satan
Apart from the new birth no good thing dwells in me

How Does it Happen?

He offered four steps (though steps was really not quite the right word):

First, the Holy Spirit freely gives life. There is no how-to here at all; he must sovereignly do this.

Second, this happens through the living and abiding Word of God. We see here the human agency of the divine sovereign awakening of dead souls.

Third, the gospel brings about faith. Believing is the result, not the cause of the new birth.

Fourth, Christ is received and believed upon.

These four steps cannot be carved apart—they must happen simultaneously.

*****

Coming up this afternoon: lunch break, breakout sessions, a few hours of free time. After dinner John Lennox will speak for a second time.

After a great dinner, and a few worship songs courtesy of Keith and Kristyn Getty, John Piper took to the pulpit to explore the theme of preaching the doctrine of justification from the Scriptures in an undiminished way. For ten years he has been very exercised about this doctrine and he began by offering five reasons why this has been the doctrine that has most consumed him over the past ten years. Here they are:

First, for eight of those years he was preaching through the book of Romans. When you preach through Romans, you bump into the doctrine of justification again and again. He lived in Romans for eight years and really had no choice but to reflect heavily on this doctrine.

Second, he is surrounded at Bethlehem by apprentices and young men who read more than he does, who are smarter than he is, and who ask many hard questions about cutting edge issues they are reading about and he is not. He has found it necessary to respond to their questions.

Third, this doctrine is increasingly embattled in our day. It is being confused and reduced and contradicted in many ways (and here he offered five of them): a) the lines between Protestant and Catholic doctrine are being blurred; b) the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is being flat-out denied by evangelicals; c) the New Perspective on Paul (and N.T. Wright in particular) has redrawn the map so that confusion is very widespread about what justification is, how it relates to judgment in the future, and so on; d) faith itself and the fruits of faith are being merged so that the historic “by faith alone” is losing its meaning; e) the term “righteousness of God” is being given meanings that historically it never had and which are throwing people off.

4. He relates to this truth in terms of the imputation to us of the righteousness that Christ perfectly lived out very personally. “I love this doctrine! I live off this doctrine.” This doctrine is desperately, daily saving. Some might say that this is a blinding passion but perhaps it might instead be an eye-opening passion. The Bible is as often (more often?) misinterpreted by those who come to it skeptically as those who come to it with craving.

5. The heart of the glory of God in Christ reaches its climax at the cross. The gospel is the gospel of the glory of Christ. He is driven by this to preach with passion the doctrine of justification.

He then offered three ways the glory of Christ is diminished in these challenges. And having done that, he spent some time discussing each one of them. I will give only the points and leave it to you to listen in for his explanation (and again, I’ll let you know when the audio files are available):

First, one of Christ’s great achievements is being denied—that his righteous perfection is counted as mine.

Second, if you lose Christ’s righteousness being counted to us, something in the human soul does not get dealt with. There is some need within us that cannot be dealt with outside of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

Third, the aim of our charge is love, says Paul. Love is the great outcome of the Christian doctrine. What happens if you begin to blur the line between the ground of it and “it” itself? The very thing that you try to increase in importance (love) will die because you’ve tried to make it the foundation instead of something that is supported by the foundation.

We’ll now enjoy a short concert by the Getty’s and after that look forward to another great day tomorrow. If you’d be so kind, I’d love it if you’d remember me in your prayers as I lead a breakout session tomorrow at 1:00 PM.

I’ll be back in the morning!

According to a new “Video Consumer Mapping” study by Ball State University, Americans aged 65 and older spend an average of 420 minutes per day in front of a television screen. 420 minutes per day. Let that sink in for just a moment. That is seven hours; seven full hours. Every day. On average. That means that half of the days it would be more than seven hours. Is that three hours in the morning, perhaps 8 until 11 and then four more in the evening, maybe 7 until 11 PM? How is it even possible? It is unbelievable. And it does not even include time spent watching DVDs or Tivo.

But perhaps it should not be that surprising considering that the average American of any age spends just over five hours per day watching TV. Older Americans, those who have retired, simply add a couple of extra hours onto the television they have already been consuming. America is obsessed.

I read this study and had to think about my life and whether I am on the kind of trajectory that will lead me to a useful, profitable, godly “retirement,” or the kind of retirement that will leave me spending endless hours in front of the tube. Some day I do hope to retire from the day-to-day money-earning responsibilities I have now. If God wills it, a time may come when I can dedicate more time to other things. But I hope and pray that it is something better, more spiritually-profitable, than television.

This was on my mind as I went to church yesterday. At Grace Fellowship Church we had the privilege of recognizing the hand of God in the life of one of our brothers as he was set apart as a pastor and elder. He is a man I’ve come to know well in the past few months and one I’ve come to respect a great deal. The gifting and call of God on his life is so clear, so obvious, that it was a joy to recognize it and to celebrate it together. Our pastor preached a sermon that, while it was directed specifically at this new elder, had application to all of us. He preached from 1 Timothy 4. There were a few words from that passage that stood out to me and resounded in my mind. “Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” The pastors’ charge revolved around this: “The greatest gift you can be to our church is to be full of God.” In other words, “Be godly!”

“Godliness is of value in every way,” said the Apostle, “as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” And surely if it has value for now and value for eternity, it also has value for the time between now and eternity! So it must be that godliness will protect me from being a senior Christian, a gray-haired retired old man, who has nothing more to do with my time than to spend seven or eight hours of every day in front of the television screen. This passage was speaking to me, challenging me to be a godly man, a godly Christian. In his commentary on these verses, Philip Ryken says, “The word “godliness” (eusebeia) occurs fifteen times in the New Testament, but nine of them are in this epistle. If someone had asked Timothy what Paul’s letter was about, he might well have said, ‘Well, I suppose it was mostly about the life in God’s household, but the thing that impressed me was my personal need for godliness.’” And like that Timothy of so many years ago, I want to be godly.

Ryken says as well, “Above all else, God wants his people and his ministers to be godly. This is why Paul did not give Timothy seven steps to boost church attendance, or helpful tips about becoming a better administrator, or a thorough critique of his preaching style. Instead, he gave him the most practical instruction of all: a good minister is a godly minister.” And, of course, a good Christian is a godly Christian. Though this letter is directed at Timothy as a pastor, it is directed as well at all of us as believers. “When it comes to physical conditioning, it usually helps to have a trainer. These days, if people want to get their bodies in top condition, they hire a personal trainer. The trainer’s job is to set up a schedule of exercises to get the client into shape. There is a sense in which every Christian has a personal trainer: the Holy Spirit, speaking in Scripture. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to produce the life of God in the soul. What makes people godly is reading, hearing, studying, and meditating on the Bible. As John Stott points out, ‘We cannot become familiar with this godly book without becoming godly ourselves.’”

John Piper has recently released a little booklet called Rethinking Retirement. This is what he says about finishing life to God’s glory: “So finishing life to the glory of Christ means using whatever strength and eyesight and hearing and mobility and resources we have left to treasure Christ and in that joy to serve people—that is, to seek to bring them with us into the everlasting enjoyment of Christ. Serving people, and not ourselves, as the overflow of treasuring Christ makes Christ look great.” I suppose it is obvious that taking eight hours of every day to watch television would radically reduce a Christian’s ability to live that kind of a life. It is difficult to make Christ look great while basking endlessly in the glow of a flickering 37-inch rectangle.

In Piper’s booklet he quotes Ralph Winters of the U.S. Center for World Missions who says this: “Most men don’t die of old age, they die of retirement. I read somewhere that half the men retiring in the state of New York die within two years. Save your life and you’ll lose it. Just like other drugs, other psychological addictions, retirement is a virulent disease, not a blessing… .Where in the Bible do they see [retirement]? Did Moses retire? Did Paul retire? Peter? John? Do military officers retire in the middle of a war?” Piper says, “millions of Christian men and women are finishing their formal careers in their fifties and sixties, and for most of them there will be a good twenty years before their physical and mental powers fail. What will it mean to live those final years for the glory of Christ? How will we live them in such a way as to show that Christ is our highest Treasure?” Will that involve seven or eight hours of television every day?

Just a few more words from Piper: “When I heard J. Oswald Sanders at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School chapel speaking at the age of eighty-nine say that he had written a book a year for Christ since he was seventy, everything in me said, ‘O God, don’t let me waste my final years! Don’t let me buy the American dream of retirement—month after month of leisure and play and hobbies and putzing around in the garage and rearranging the furniture and golfing and fishing and sitting and watching television. Lord, please have mercy on me. Spare me this curse.’”

I was convicted yesterday that to avoid this kind of a retirement, this kind of a curse, I need to be and to become a godly man. I need to continually recommit to godliness, knowing that godliness will profit me now and in eternity, but also in all of those periods of time between now and eternity—and perhaps especially in those years when so much else is being taken away. Godliness is of value in every way.

As I read John Piper’s book Finally Alive I came across a lot of godly wisdom. But there was one quote that, more than the others, jumped out at me. I thought I’d share it with you today…

*****

This is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. (1 John 3:11-14)

Now this specific form of love in verse 12 may seem to you to be totally unneeded. “Don’t be like Cain who murdered his brother.” Am I really concerned that there will be a spate of murders among Christians? No. And I don’t think John feared that either, though it does happen. He doesn’t focus on the murder. He asks in verse 12, “And why did he murder him?” That’s John’s concern. There is something about Cain’s motive that he thinks will be relevant to the way believers love each other.

He answers at the end of verse 12: “Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.” What John is saying here is not merely that love doesn’t kill a brother, but that love doesn’t feel resentful when a brother is superior in some spiritual or moral way. Cain didn’t kill Abel simply because Cain was evil. He killed him because the contrast between Abel’s goodness and Cain’s evil made Cain angry. It made him feel guilty. Abel didn’t have to say anything; Abel’s goodness was a constant reminder to Cain that he was evil. And instead of dealing with his own evil by repentance and change, he got rid of Abel. If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, shoot the mirror.

So what would it be like for any of us to be like Cain? It would mean that anytime some weakness or bad habit in our lives is exposed by contrast to someone else’s goodness, instead of dealing with the weakness or the bad habit, we keep away from those whose lives make us feel defective. We don’t kill them. We avoid them. Or worse, we find ways to criticize them so as to neutralize the part of their lives that was making us feel convicted. We feel like the best way to nullify someone’s good point is to draw attention to their bad point. And so we protect ourselves from whatever good they might be or us.

But John’s point is: Love doesn’t act like that. Love is glad when our brothers and sisters are making progress in good habits or good attitudes or good behavior. Love rejoices in this growth. And if it happens to be faster than our own growth, then love is humble and rejoices with those who rejoice.

So the lesson for us is: Everywhere you see some growth, some virtue, some, spiritual discipline, some good habit, or good attitude, rejoice in it. Give thanks for it. Compliment it. Don’t resent it. Don’t be like Cain. Respond the opposite from Cain. Be inspired by other people’s goodness.

Love is humble. Love delights in other people’s good. Love doesn’t protect its own flaws. Love takes steps to change them. What a beautiful fellowship where everyone is rejoicing in each other’s strengths, not resenting them! This is what the love of God looks like when the new birth gives it life in the people of God.

As I read the final page of Finally Alive I realized that I had found a new favorite book by John Piper. Those who have read my reviews of some of his previous titles know that while I greatly enjoy Piper’s ministry and am indebted to him in many ways, I have not always found his books easy to read. Yet I read Finally Alive with relish, enjoying it from the first page to the last. It is an incisive examination of a topic of profound importance. I think it represents Piper at his very best as an author.