Prayer is the open admission that without Christ
we can do nothing.
– John Piper
Tag: John Piper
The Christian
It’s called “The Calvinist” – but it could simply be called “The Christian.”
Missions Quote
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory…. But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish…. Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak….
– John Piper in Let the Nations Be Glad
Bind My Heart
Let your goodness, O God, bind my heart with a chain
to you! Seal my will to yours with an unbreakable application of your eternal covenant…. Keep me!
Preserve me! Defeat every rising rebellion!
Overcome every niggling doubt! Deliver from every destructive temptation! Nullify every fatal allurement! Expose every demonic deception! Tear down every arrogant argument! Shape me! Incline me! Hold me! Master me! Do whatever you must do to keep me trusting you and fearing you till Jesus comes or calls.
– John Piper in The Roots of Endurance
Normal
Frustration is normal, disappointment is normal, sickness is normal. Conflict, persecution, danger, stress – they are all normal. The mind-set that moves away from these
will move away from reality and away from Christ.
Golgotha was not a suburb of Jerusalem.
– John Piper in The Roots of Endurance
A Pastor’s Longing
One of the great longings of my life is that we at Bethlehem [Baptist Church] would be the sending base of ever-increasing numbers of missionaries to the unreached peoples and that we would send them with ever-increasing effectiveness and ever-increasing faithfulness and ever-increasing care for them and their families. When I think about not wasting my life, this is what I think about as often as anything: study and pray and write and speak and lead in a way that results in more and more visionary young people and restless mid-career people and wise, mature retired people who pull up their stakes, pack their tents, and go with Jesus and the gospel to unreached peoples of the world, no matter where they are – far or near.
– John Piper in A Holy Ambition
May we have the same passion for missions!
Book Look: A Holy Ambition
A Holy Ambition is a collection of sermons by John Piper (and one article by David Mathis) on the topic of missions. After a sermon and the article introducing missions, the book is divided into three parts: a Biblical theology of gospel-centered missions, the mandate of world missions, and the costs and blessings of mission. It closes with a final sermon, plus two appendices: one arguing against prosperity preaching and the other declaring 14 driving convictions behind missions.
Overall the book was challenging. I’m sure different sermons will hit hard on different people, but I was especially challenged by three. The first sermon which introduced the book calls us to a holy ambition to reach those who have never heard. The sixth sermon was based on John 10:16 and ended with four reasons we can do missions confidently. And the tenth sermon calls us to be willing to suffer to accomplish the mission.
Recommended to fuel your desire for missions whether God calls you to go or simply grow in prayer and giving.
All of God
God is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things. Nothing exists without his creating it. Nothing stays in being without his sustaining word. Everything has its reason for existing from him. Therefore nothing can be understood apart from him, and all understandings of all things that leave him out are superficial understandings, since they leave out the most important reality in the universe. We can scarcely begin to feel today how God-ignoring we have become, because it is the very air we breathe.
– John Piper
in A God Entranced Vision of All Things
Brian J. Mikul 