David Mathis works for both Desiring God and Bethlehem Baptist Church as the Executive Pastoral Assistant for John Piper.

David fell in 2 Samuel 11. He saw that Bathsheba was “very beautiful,” and he followed his lusts down the slope to adultery—and then even to having her husband killed.

But by 1 Kings 1, David is able to be attended to by Abishag the Shunammite, who the text also says was “very beautiful,” and yet “the king knew her not” (verse 4).

Maybe aging was a factor, but my guess is that there’s much more going on here than merely getting old. Such a change sure seems like God’s purifying hand in some regard—if not mostly. It’s a real-life example of victory.

There’s no need to be captive for the rest of your life, if God would so move. Be hopeful and lean on him for help.

This week's sermon: "The Father Is Seeking True Worship—Now"

Title changed to: "The Tragic Cost of Her Cavernous Thirst"

Her inner life was too painful and too dirty, so the woman at the well kept her heart locked and couldn't recognize her thirst for living water, even with the answer for her thirst standing right there in front of her.

So Jesus, ever loving and ever wise, reached for the nerve. "Go, call your husband." And he wasn't fooled by her use of truth to distort the truth. "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband."

From this encounter at Jacob's well, we learn not just about the woman, but about ourselves. We learn how we desperately move from one substitute to the next to try to satisfy our cavernous thirst for real water. But we also learn about Jesus—that he is hot on the trail of sinners, ready to savingly expose the ugliness of their sin, and willing to die to save them.

Matt Chandler explains where “the de-churched” come from:

It was T. H. L. Parker who introduced John Piper to John Calvin. In Piper's foreword to Desiring God’s new reprint of Parker’s Portrait of Calvin, he writes,

Desiring God is publishing T. H. L. Parker’s Portrait of Calvin out of theologically and historically informed nostalgia—and a sense of mission. The mission is to make much of the majesty of God. And the nostalgia is that this book was my first serious exposure to Calvin. I paid fifty cents for the book in a used rack. That was four decades ago.

Parker’s Portrait was first published in 1954. But it’s not the kind of book that goes out of date, because it’s only trying to be current with the sixteenth century. If you get it right, it stays right. When I saw the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth coming (July 10, 2009), I thought that maybe others would enjoy the same introduction to Calvin I enjoyed.

Watch some more thoughts from John Piper on this book:

This biography is now available exclusively through Desiring God.You can buy it or download it for free.

With Calvin’s 500th birthday just weeks away, reading Parker’s Portrait would be a fine way to mark the historic date.

Also, through the life and ministry of John Calvin, Desiring God will turn its sights to God and his Son at our national conference this September.

Registration is now open and if you register by the end of June, you'll get the early-bird rate.

This week’s sermon: “You Will Never Be Thirsty Again”

Jesus and the woman at the well—great fodder for a sermon on evangelism, right? “Watch Jesus navigate the conversation, and go do likewise.”

Not so fast. The problem with this approach is that it misses the fact that it’s not Jesus in this story who represents our plight but the adulteress. We sinners are the Samaritan woman.

The woman-at-the-well account reveals woeful truth about ourselves and wonderful truth about Jesus. And the wonderful truth that it reveals about Jesus gives hope to us in our woeful condition.

We see in this story that Jesus is . . .

• graciously purposeful,
• graciously relational, and
• graciously superior.

Not arrogant superiority, but gracious superiority. His superiority is our salvation.

Laziness is not the alternative to living in your own strength. Paul talks about being strong in the strength of another.

• Ephesians 6:10: “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.”
• Colossians 1:29: “I toil [to present everyone mature in Christ], struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
• 2 Timothy 2:1: “Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
• 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am.... I worked harder than any of [the other apostles], though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
• Romans 15:18: “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.”

And it’s not only Paul who has this category for being strong in another’s strength. Peter and Hebrews join in as well.

• 1 Peter 4:11: “Whoever serves [do so] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
• Hebrews 13:20-21: “Now may the God of peace...equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight., through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Both Peter and Hebrews move directly from being strong in another’s strength to praising Jesus. When we forsake the sinful alternatives of passivity and mustering up our own strength, and instead pursue power in another’s power, that Other is mightily honored.

God gave him a message, and so he went around delivering it. “The word of God came to John”—we call him John the Baptist—and “he went into all the region around the Jordan [River], proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:2-3).

It seems John became popular pretty fast, but he wasn’t doing seeker-friendly.

He said...to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance." (Luke 3:7-8)

What did John do with his newfound platform? Two things:

1. He called for repentance (vv. 3, 7).
2. He pointed to Jesus—“He who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (Luke 3:16).

Calling for repentance and pointing to Jesus—a good model for what do with any platform.

Want to ponder how to endure? Listen to John Piper's "Sustained by Sovereign Grace."

What is God’s sovereign grace?

Not grace to bar what is not bliss
Nor flight from all distress but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

This message was preached by John Piper on Sunday at Treasuring Christ Church in Raleigh, NC and is based on a sermon delivered at Bethlehem Baptist in 1996.

What’s more impressive than standing in God’s presence? Sitting—and doing so at the right hand.

An angel said to John the Baptist’s father: “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God” (Luke 1:19). That’s noteworthy.

But more so is what Hebrews says about Jesus:

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty of high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:3-4)

That’s worthy of worship.

This week's message: "The Father Has Given All Things into Jesus' Hands "

Is John the Baptist still speaking in John 3:31-36, or is it now John the Gospel writer?

Whichever John it is, it's clear what he's doing: lifting up the unique and extraordinary person and work of Jesus as the Gospel of John does again and again. The reader who keeps pleading, "Show me your glory!" should not be disappointed.

In John 3:31-36, Jesus is lifted up as 1) coming from God, 2) being full of God, and 3) speaking and ruling as God. Jesus is perfectly united with his Father—so united that the pathway to eternity divides with Jesus. Those who embrace Jesus have eternal life. Those who reject him remain under the wrath
of God.

This week's sermon: "He Must Increase, I Must Decrease"

John 3 seems like a strange place for John the Baptist to reenter. There he was in John 1 saying what he was not: not the light, not the Christ, not the prophet. Just a voice crying in the wilderness.

But then he returns in John 3, on the heels of Jesus' renowned encounter with Nicodemus. What prompts the Baptist's return?

John the Gospel writer reintroduces the Baptist as the model responder to the Father's plan to exalt his Son. It was the Father's plan that garnered the Baptist a following as "the voice crying in the wilderness," and now it is the Father's plan that the bride hears the voice of her bridegroom. John the Baptist sees the plan, embraces it, and says with glad approval, "He must increase, I must decrease."

It's not egomania for Jesus to conspire with his Father to bring attention to himself. It's love. Jesus is the Bridegroom-Lamb who dies to purify his bride and draw attention to himself that he might save her and protect her forever. This makes John an exceedingly happy friend of the groom.

The book of Judges—what a mess! It starts bad and gets worse and worse, then ends so poorly that it’s awkward to read in public.

Yet God put it in the Book and means it to be for “our instruction” (1 Corinthians 10:11; Romans 15:4). The author of Hebrews even goes so far as to mention Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah in his faith hall of fame (Hebrews 11:32). What are we to do with this?

Tremper Longman and Ray Dillard help us see how Judges is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16)—and for pointing to Jesus.

What a collection of human beings in the book of Judges! Strange heroes they are—a reluctant farmer, a prophetess, a left-handed assassin, a bastard bandit, a sex-addicted Nazirite, among others. It is easy at a distance to point out the foibles and failures of the leading characters in this downwardly spiraling story.

But lest we get too proud, Paul reminds us, “That is what some of you were” (1 Corinthians 6:11). With similar mixtures of ignorance, frail obedience, and tangled motives, we, like them, were “washed, sanctified, and justified” by the grace of God. For all of their flaws, we are to learn from their faith. For it was in faith that Gideon, Barak, Jephthah, and Samson “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised” (Hebrews 11:32-33).

In spite of their failures, their faith was not misplaced. They become a part of that great cloud of witnesses calling for us to persevere and to fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2). We too need a champion to fight our battles for us, one raised up by God and invested with his Spirit in full measure; we too need a leader to secure for us the inheritance that God has promised, one who will perfect our faith. (An Introduction to the Old Testament, 143)

John Piper was asked to write about a Passion conference memory for the Passion Twenty Ten website. Here’s what he wrote:

Speaking at the first OneDay (2000) was a stressful and moving experience.

On the one hand, the wind threatened to blow my notes away, and I was distracted by having to hold them down.

But on the other hand, I felt carried along, even in my weakness, like a father speaking to tens of thousands of people young enough to be my children.

It was a kind of turning point for me from twenty years of being a younger pastor rallying comrades in the Great Cause, to being a kind of Stand-In Father and Distant Mentor to thousands of hungry minds.

Things have never quite been the same since then. It was and is a great honor and joy to be touched by (His) Passion.

Read or listen to Piper’s message from OneDay 2000, called “Boasting Only in the Cross.”

This week's sermon: "This Is the Judgment: Light Has Come into the World"

Our sin and God's grace interact with a twist. John 3:16-21 says that unbelief is our fault, but belief is a gift of God. There's a kind of asymmetry to Jesus' words in this text—those who don't believe have themselves to blame, but for those who do believe, the credit goes to God, not to themselves.

Jesus did not come to a neutral world. He didn't come to make neutral people positive, but he came to those already dead and guilty to make some alive and free.

Those who don't come to Jesus in faith magnify his justice, while those who do come magnify his grace. In fact, Jesus says, that is why we come: "that it may be clearly seen that [our] works have been carried out in God" (John 3:21). Believers love it when their lives display God's free grace.

This week's sermon: "God So Loved the World, Part 2"

The free offer of the gospel in John 3:16 represents a glorious love. God loved the world—the sinful, fallen, rebellious world—and gave his Son so that all those who believe have eternal life. This is an amazing love.

But God's love goes beyond John 3:16. There is more to his love than the free offer of the gospel. There is a "great love" with which God loves his chosen people and awakens them from the dead and gives them new birth, loving them with an invincible, never-ending, covenant love.

Yes, God loves the world with the love of John 3:16. But this love doesn't cancel out his other loves. Christians should be joyfully eager to let the Bible speak comprehensively about the multi-faceted love of God.

For our friends in the Atlanta area (isn’t that pretty much the whole Southeast?), John Piper has agreed to speak at Passion Twenty Ten in January, 2010.

It’s still early in the planning, but more info is available at Passion's site.

This week's sermon: "God So Loved the World, Part 1"

It's no wonder that John 3:16 is one of the most famous and most cherished verses in the Bible. Eight of the greatest realities in existence are packed into one sentence:

• God
• Love
• The world
• The Son of God
• Faith
• Perishing forever
• Living forever
• Whoever
  

Nothing is more urgent or more relevant than the awesome things clarified in this verse.

And such central truths are not just for beginners. John 3:16 is high-level, high-voltage shock therapy for every kind of struggle. John 3:16 is for all—from the most distant nonbeliever to most mature Jesus-follower.

This week's sermon: "The Free Will of the Wind"

The Wind has a will of his own.

We don't control the Wind of God's Spirit. He gives the new birth as he pleases. His will is decisive, not ours. For sure, our will moves when we receive the new birth—it moves toward the crucified Christ. But the decisive Mover is the Spirit. He gets the credit for our new birth.

The free will of the Wind is threatening to those who would be captain of their own souls. But to those who know they are desperate, dead in sin, and utterly unable to save themselves, this truth can be thrilling.

John Piper was in Chicago this evening. He spoke at Park Community Church alongside Don Carson at an event hosted by the Henry Center called The Pastor As Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor.

John's address was mainly autobiographical and titled "The Pastor As Scholar: A Personal Journey." The manuscript is online, and we hope to have the audio and video soon.

This afternoon John Piper is preaching 2 Timothy 1:1-12 at The Gospel Coalition. His title is "Feed the Flame of God's Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel." We have his manuscript available already. And we hope to have the audio and video shortly.

Update: Audio now available. Video too.

In Romans 12:13, Paul points out that one effect of God’s mercy on his people is that they “seek to show hospitality.”

Seek. Pursue. Chase after.

They are not merely willing to be hospitable when someone comes to the door or asks for a favor. But they seek to show hospitality. They’re looking for and creating opportunities to be hospitable, not just answering the doorbell.

That Paul would point to seeking, not merely being willing to be hospitable, makes sense. After all, it’s an implication he’s drawing from the gospel—a gospel that says God was not merely hospitable to us when we asked him, but he sought to show hospitality.

He took initiative toward us before we showed up at his door or asked for any favors.

I’m thinking who we should have over next.

This week's sermon: "I Have Seen the Lord"

A generation ago, resurrection was the crux of Christian faith. If you believed Jesus was raised, you were a Christian. If you didn't accept the resurrection, you essentially abandoned the rest of the faith.

But the idols are different today. The idol of modernistic certainty is giving way to the idol of subjective usefulness. "If believing in the resurrection is beneficial for you, then fine; just don't push it on me."

But the gospel cuts against the grains of both modern and postmodern thinking. The resurrection is more than a historical question and its implications will one day matter to you, whether you feel the personal relevance today or not.

God designed that we would "see" the truth of the resurrection 20 centuries later through the inspired testimony of those who talked to, touched, and interacted with the resurrected Jesus. Their witness in the New Testament becomes a kind of window through which, by faith and the help of the Holy Spirit, we are able to see the resurrected Jesus—and join with Mary on Easter Sunday in saying, "I have seen the Lord."

One puzzle in the passion story is, Who’s the young man running through the garden without his clothes on?

Mark 14:51-52 says,

And a young man followed [Jesus], with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.

There are several options for who this is. But the best may be that it's the Gospel-writer Mark himself, who was in the city and an eyewitness to the Passion week proceedings. William Lane explains:

Several Fathers of the Church conjectured that the young man was Mark himself, who is known to have been a resident in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12) and in whose house, it was held by tradition, Jesus celebrated the [Passover] meal. If this is correct, Mark was an eyewitness to the transactions in Gethsemane. His primary purpose for including this vignette, however, appears to have been to emphasize the fact that all fled, leaving Jesus alone in the custody of the police. No one remained with Jesus, not even a valiant young man who intended to follow him. (The Gospel According to Mark, 527-528)

Jesus had no help at the cross from his followers. Only he could bring about our salvation, and so he had to work alone. Not even the young man Mark, with all the strength and vigor of youth, could help the Savior in his darkest hour.

This week's sermon: "The Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up—Like the Serpent"

It was risky for Jesus to compare himself to a snake.

He had been telling Nicodemus about the new birth. He marveled that an Israelite teacher hadn't seen this coming in the Hebrew Scriptures.

So in John 3:14-15, Jesus compares himself to the bronze snake Moses raised up on a pole in Numbers 21. In doing so, Jesus communicates that he himself...

• ...is the Son of Man (cf. John 9:35).
• ...is the source of rescue.
• ...is portrayed as becoming a curse.
• ...is the one who gives eternal life.

And all we must do so that he is these things for us is look to him.