You can now listen to the Wheaton Alumni Symposium. The panel was Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and John Piper. They discussed changes in Evangelicalism over the last 40 years (the length of time since they all graduated from college).

It begins with a 10-minute intro from each; then there's some discussion among themselves; and it closes with some questions from the audience.

Confused about or unfamiliar with the "doctrines of grace"? Do you want to learn more about their biblical foundations and implications for the Christian life?

We've just updated Pastor John's TULIP seminar with new audio and video.

In this seminar he goes through all five points—Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints. He identifies them from the Scriptures, considering the arguments against them, and explaining why this package called "Calvinism"—though controversial—is wonderfully good news.

Our translators have been hard at work again. Thanks to their efforts, we’ve been able to post several new sermons and articles on our site since the beginning of 2008.

Check out newly translated resources in these languages:

• German (Quest for Joy booklet)
• Romanian (5 new sermons)
• Russian (3 new sermons)
• Spanish (22 new sermons)
• Thai (Quest for Joy booklet)
• Finnish (Quest for Joy booklet)

We add translated resources regularly, so check back to find the newest materials.

Find out how you can help with the translation of Desiring God resources.

This week's sermon: "I'm Sending You to Open Their Eyes"

Only God can cause the new birth. Only God can open blind eyes and awaken the dead.

But he tasks his people with the impossible. He sends them to open the eyes of the spiritually blind.

How? What role can mere humans play in the new birth of others?

The New Testament is crystal clear: Telling the gospel. Gospel-telling is the essential means that God uses to bring about the new birth.

This final sermon in the series on new birth ends with ten practical encouragements for gospel-telling.

Listen to John Piper's first message at the New Word Alive Conference in Wales. Adrian Warnock posts notes.

Update: The second message is now available, too.

This week's sermon: "The New Birth Produces Love"

The new birth and love for others are deeply connected.

For one, God is the one who brings about the new birth. Those who are born of God have his nature in them, and his nature is love. Therefore, those who are born again love others like the one who bore them. It's in their DNA.

Secondly, God not only is love, but he has demonstrated his love in history by sending his Son to bear his just wrath for those who will believe in him. The love of God has triumphed over the wrath of God in the Son of God.

And this most magnificent manifestation of love is the gospel word that brings about the new birth and permeates the new life of the born again. Therefore, the born again love. The nature of God as love that is seen in the sending of his Son is the very nature that has been put in the born again as an internal impulse. Those who are born of God can't help but love others like the God who sent his Son for them.

How then do we love others? We don't despise the goodness we see in our brothers but commend it, and we give of ourselves—even at great cost—to meet others' needs.

This week's sermon: "No One Born of God Makes a Practice of Sinning"

Being born again doesn't mean being sinless. In fact, no Christian is sinless. That's why we have an Advocate in Jesus (1 John 2:1).

How then are the born again to deal with their sinfulness?

Many oscillate between two dangerous extremes. One extreme is presumption. We may slip into a lukewarm, careless frame of mind about our own sinfulness. We start to coast or to become indifferent to whether we are holy. We lose our vigilance against bad attitudes and behaviors—and start to settle in with sinful patterns of behavior.

The other extreme is despair. We may sink down in fear and discouragement that our righteousness, our love for people, and our fight against sin are just not good enough. Our conscience condemns us, and our deeds seem so imperfect that they could never prove that we are born again.

But there is redemptive power in God's word. By God's word and the work of his Spirit, the born-again person is awakened to the dangers of presumption and despair and flies to Jesus, our Advocate, for mercy and forgiveness and righteousness.

Embrace the warning and the comfort.

This is the 1-year anniversary of my dad's dad dying.

So I thought it would be a good day to commemorate him through this 10-minute video that was made for the pastors conference last month.

In it, my dad walks around the neighborhood and the house he grew up in and talks about the memories of his father that this brings up.

This Week's Sermon: Regeneration, Faith, Love: In That Order

First comes regeneration, the new birth. The Holy Spirit opens blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus' person and work.

Regeneration causes faith—with no lapse in time. Faith is the seeing of Jesus with the once-blind eyes.

Then faith is the root of love. By faith the born-again heart first embraces Jesus as the one who has already loved others perfectly, and then from that grows the power to love others, as imperfect as that love will be.

The order of causality is crucial: new birth, then faith, then love.

Our ability to love others imperfectly is based on our assurance that in Christ we already love them perfectly. Even when we fail to love as we ought, Jesus' perfection stands before God in place of that failure.

Faith in Jesus, not love for people, is the way we enjoy our union with Christ. Faith must come first and be the root of love and be different from love. Otherwise, love will be destroyed.

John Piper just finished his second message at Resurgence. His message had two parts:

• 16 Foundational Convictions that Shape How I Preach
• 16 Examples of How My Pastoral Ministry Shapes My Preaching.

I will post the audio as soon as I have it. You can now listen to this message.

Tonight at Resurgence, John Piper spoke on why he trusts the Bible. His message had three parts:

1. Trust the Bible for what?
2. Why does this matter?
3. 5 Reasons he trusts the Bible is the word of God.

The notes include all of his references and much of what he said. The audio will be available as soon as I have it. I'll let you know here when it's up.

Update: You can now listen to this message thanks to the quick work of the staff here at Mars Hill Church.

This week’s sermon: "Everyone Who Has Been Born of God Overcomes the World: A Wide-Angle View of John’s First Letter"

The apostle John wrote his First Epistle to believers, with deceivers in their midst, to give them rock-solid confidence in their possession of eternal life as born-again children of God, so that they would not be drawn away after sin—all to the completion of his joy.

At the heart of John’s reason for writing was his desire to help his born-again readers know that they were born again—that they already had new, spiritual, eternal life.

In his letter, John gives eleven evidences of those who are born of God:
1. They keep God’s commandments (2:3-4; 3:24).
2. They walk as Christ walked (2:56).
3. They don’t hate others but love them (2:9; 3:14; 4:7-8, 20).
4. They don’t love the world (2:15).
5. They confess the Son and receive (have) him (2:23; 4:15; 5:12).
6. They practice righteousness (2:29).
7. They don’t make a practice of sinning (3:6, 9-10; 5:18).
8. They possess the Spirit of God (3:24; 4:13).
9. They listen submissively to the apostolic Word (4:6).
10. They believe that Jesus is the Christ (5:1).
11. They overcome the world (5:4).

These tests of the new birth are rigorous, but John does not mean for us to infer either that the born-again are perfect or that the born-again can loose their salvation. He affirms that “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1:8) that those who go out from us “were not of us” (2:19).

Those who are born again enjoy the dual comfort that they need not be perfect and that they will never ultimately fall away.

This week's sermon: "Faith: Unique and Fruitful Effect of the New Birth"

The new birth happens through the word—the gospel.

This gospel message is not a mantra. It does not aim to empty the mind through verbal sounds that have no verbal meaning.

Rather, the gospel word aims to fill the mind with clear and understandable content. The gospel is a mentally intelligible narration of the historical events concerning the person and work of Jesus for us.

The gospel is not mantra.

At the heart of Christianity is news. At its center is a story—the greatest story in history. A scandalous story which we modestly call the good news.

God himself causes us to believe this news by granting us the new birth.

This week's sermon: "Abortion: The Innocent Blood of Our Sons and Daughters"

The horrific sin of abortion has several sad parallels with the horrific sin of child sacrifice in the Old Testament.

Psalm 106 recounts the atrocity, sounding a tragic note that is all too familiar in our world three millennia later, and portrays the sin as 1) a sacrifice, 2) of the innocent blood, 3) of our sons and daughters, 4) to demons.

This week's sermon: Probability, Prejudice, and Christ

Everyday life depends on judgments of probability.

We must make generalizations all the time, from deciding what road to take to what to eat and drink.

Yet a fine line exists between probability judgments and sinful prejudice. Our corrupt hearts are prone to cloak sinful prejudice in the garb of seemingly legitimate generalizations.

May God help us to identify this sinful bent in all of us and kill it through faith in Jesus, who crossed the greatest possible chasm to reconcile us to himself.

This week's sermon: "Born Again Through the Living and Abiding Word"

The new birth does not bring temporary resuscitation. It gives indestructible, imperishable life—eternal life.

Those who are born again have the promise that all of life's worst troubles and pains work together for their everlasting good (Romans 8:28). Even when the spiritually reborn are persecuted and killed, not a hair on their eternal head will perish (Luke 21:18). The life of the new birth is eternal.

According to the apostle Peter, God gives the imperishable life of the new birth 1) through Jesus' ransoming blood, 2) through his resurrection and 3) through the call of the gospel, "the living and abiding word of God."