God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

Recently, in partnership with Christian Focus Publications, we were able to create a 12-week study guide for use with John Piper's book about what it means to be born again, Finally Alive.

With the restart of Bible studies, small groups and Sunday schools this month, you might want to consider this as a guide and supplement to a group study of the book. Or, if not in a group, you may want to use it to enhance your own individual study.

Download the study guide (PDF). And if you don't already have a copy, get Finally Alive.

This is the last question from the Ask Pastor John Live session we recorded earlier this year. Due to Pastor John's leave, we will not be rolling out any more new episodes for at least the rest of this year. Search all previous episodes.

Podcast subscribers, stay tuned for more information about our forthcoming "Everything Video" podcast.

John Piper says you don't have to be ordained to be a minister. Watch or listen to him explain. Scroll down to read an edited transcript.

The following is an edited transcript of the audio.

Would there be any specific counsel you would give a business person about glorifying God in their work?

You must have heard a talk I gave earlier today. I gave a talk to the Christian businessmen's group downtown today on how to glorify God from 8 to 5.

The first thing I want to say is that I totally believe in secular work, meaning non-church work. We are all ministers, we are all priests—priesthood of the believer. I'm not drawing that kind of distinction. I'm just saying, as far as the office goes, your priesthood may be at a computer company, or in nursing, or as a doctor, or in carpentry or whatever. And my priesthood happens to be in pastoring.

So I'm totally there, and I believe the Bible says we should be staying generally where we are. Only if God leads in a clear way should we leave the job we are in when we are saved.

So the counsel I would give is to seek to do your work in such a way that Christ looks more important than your work. Seek to make and use money in such a way that Christ looks more important than money. Seek to have relationships with people in the work place such that Christ is more important than those relationships.

Now, that doesn't imply that relationships go down in effectiveness and importance. It means, in fact, that they go up! Because if Christ is infinitely precious to you, you will now have resources for the relationships and for the work that you wouldn't have had otherwise, if those relationships were god.

If they are god, you are drawing strength from them and eventually people are going to feel that. "You are using me. You may be really really interested in me, and you may want to spend time with me. But I'm starting to feel drained by you."

Whereas, if Christ is all, and he sends you into that relationship with resources, then the feel should be, "I like being around you because you are ministering to me. You are not taking from me."

So whether it is people, whether it is money, whether it is activities, we do them all. We are very good at them. We should be creative and industrious and excellent in all of our work in order to adorn the gospel and do it in a way that Christ is shown to be more valuable than any of those things.

The chapter in the book Don't Waste Your Life called "Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5" is where I'm getting all that stuff.

Pun intended.

This is probably my favorite thought/quote from Blaise Pascal. Except perhaps his quote on happiness.

What is man in nature? A nothing compared to the infinite, a whole compared to the nothing, a middle point between all and nothing, infinitely remote from an understanding of the extremes . . . equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed. . .

Let us then realize our limitations. We are something and we are not everything. Such being as we have conceals from us the knowledge of first principles, which arise from nothingness, and the smallness of our being hides infinity from our sight.

Our intelligence occupies the same rank in the order of intellect as our body in the whole range of nature.

Limited in every respect, we find this intermediate state between two extremes reflected in all our faculties. Our senses can perceive nothing extreme; too much noise deafens us, too much light dazzles; when we are too far or too close we cannot see properly; an argument is obscured by being too long or too short; too much truth bewilders us.

—Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 61-63 (emphasis mine)

I love this quote because it reminds me of how humble I should be about what I think I know. It's also good to keep in mind as I prepare for our conference theme this year.

Praise God that he has not left us lost in the middle. He has spoken. And what is more, he has entered in.

Here's the scoop on another great product coming soon from Crossway. We really appreciate their partnership in putting on this year's Desiring God National Conference.

Available this Fall from Crossway, the ESV Seek and Find Bible is a great way to help kids ages 5-9 learn to love God’s Word. The Bible contains the full ESV text along with other helpful resources, like book introductions written for children, character profiles, maps, and a concordance.

The primary feature of the Seek and Find Bible is 120 full-color illustrations, all from original hand paintings. Each illustration is paired with an age-appropriate retelling of the Bible story. At the end of each story special “Seek and Find” sections help children learn more about the story through different categories:

• Where to Find the Story
• Key Bible Verse
• Three Key Questions
• Related Bible Readings

The Seek and Find Bible contains some great stuff for kids to read and discover with their parents or on their own. For information on editions and to order, visit Crossway’s website.

Please grab your dinner and join us for a special White Horse Inn recording in the Conference Exhibit Hall at this year's National Conference. It will take place on Friday, October 1st from 5:00 - 6:30 pm.

Ask questions and be part of the audience as Mike Horton and the “usual cast of characters” record a program on "Textual Narcissism."

The Christian life is a journey to the greatest joy that exists. But "the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:14). Why is that? Because, paradoxically, in order to pursue our greatest joy, we must deny ourselves.

*          *          *

It was a moment of euphoria for the disciples. Jesus was the Christ. Peter had confessed it and Jesus had confirmed it. The long-awaited arrival of Israel's Messiah had come! And the Twelve were at the center of it!

Then oddly, Jesus immediately started talking about being murdered by his enemies. And he said some strange things about a resurrection. This was very confusing. But one thing seemed clear to Peter: defeat could not be the path to the Christ's glory. The Christ was to be victorious.

So Peter brought correction to Jesus. Jesus called his correction satanic.

Peter was stunned. What could be satanic about wanting the Christ to be victorious? Jesus' answer was, "you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man" (Mark 8:33).

Jesus knew that this was the case for all the disciples and the crowd following him. So he gathered them all together and dropped a bomb on them:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mark 8:34)

A crowd of bewildered faces. A cross? They all knew what that meant: Roman execution of the most horrific kind. They were hoping that Jesus might conquer their enemies and "restore the kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6). Carrying a Roman cross did not sound like the Messianic kingdom. It sounded like death. Jesus wanted them to die?

Yes.

Jesus' kingdom was not of this world—not the geopolitical world they knew (John 18:36). His kingdom was far broader in scope than they yet realized. And their true enemy was far more powerful and deadly than Rome. Rome was a drop in the bucket (Isaiah 40:15). Their real enemy lived in them and all around them. Jesus had indeed come to conquer that enemy. In fact, he was headed to Jerusalem to strike the decisive blow in just days.

So he now was preparing them for the cross—his first and foremost, then theirs—and the multi-millennial mission to call out Israel from all peoples into his kingdom. Jesus was teaching them to intentionally move toward death.

Physical death, yes. All present that day would die, some as martyrs. But all his followers would also have to die to themselves. Die to the desire for self-glory, die to the desire for worldly respect and the fear of man, die to the desire for an easy life, die to the desire for earthly wealth, and a thousand other deaths. Finally, they must die to their desire to save their earthly lives.

But Jesus wasn't calling his followers to some stoic life of self-sacrifice for a noble cause. His was an invitation to joy beyond imagination. The broad road of the world was lined with seductive false promises appealing to and blinding sinful human heart-eyes. And it was leading many to a horror beyond imagination. So Jesus was calling his followers to deny themselves the world's paltry, brief joys that they might have overflowing eternal joy; to deny themselves hell that they might have heaven.

That's why he went on to say:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:35-37)

*          *          *

Two brief summary observations from this account:

First, the Christian life is hard; sometimes agonizing. We shouldn't be surprised (1 Peter 4:12). It's hard because denying our fallen selves is hard. Any death is hard, some much more than others. But it's designed to be that way. Our lives are our most precious earthly possession. Nothing displays the worth of Jesus more than our willingness to give away our lives (in small and large ways) for his sake.

Second, the only things that Jesus asks us to deny ourselves of are what will rob us of eternal joy. Like Moses in Hebrews 11:25-26, we are called to deny ourselves the passing pleasures of sin and consider the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the world's treasures. How? By looking to the reward! I'll sum it up in some lyrics I wrote in a song for my oldest daughter years ago:

There's joy beyond your wildest dreams if you will just believe
This aching thirst for joy you feel God only can relieve.
And that eternal life is what's in store
For all who will believe that only he's worth living for.

This year's Desiring God National Conference could not be what we're praying and planning for without the generous help of our partner ministries. We are happy to highlight 7 of them for you here.

To Every Tribe Ministries

To Every Tribe exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God among unreached peoples throughout the earth. To Every Tribe intends to purposefully glorify God by planting national led, self-sustaining, self-reproducing, evangelical Christian churches in the interior regions of Papua New Guinea and Mexico initially, and then to other unreached peoples around the world as the Lord directs.

Our vision is to bring the gospel to those hard-to-get-to places where the name of Jesus has never been heard so God will be worshiped by every tribe, language, and nation. In addition to cross-cultural church planting, it is our desire to extend this ministry into the next generation by training new pioneers for the gospel. The Center for Pioneer Church Planting prepares and equips missionary martyrs for the challenges of church planting among people groups who have never heard the gospel. The Center for Pioneer Church Planting (CPCP) is a missionary training program that combines intensive in-class preparation and study in South Texas with 'hands-on' training in church planting locations in Papua New Guinea and Mexico.

We believe the most effective way to learn how to plant churches is by doing it with experienced church planters. We do not minimize the importance of classroom learning, but we do believe on-field mentoring coupled with the classroom is what makes our training unique.

LifeWay Christian Stores

The Northwestern Book Stores in Burnsville, Coon Rapids, Edina, Maple Grove, and Woodbury are now LifeWay Christian Stores. LifeWay is honored to be continuing Northwestern’s rich tradition of service through Christian retailing to the Twin Cities area. LifeWay offers a wide array of Christian resources like Bibles, books, music, Bible studies, home decor, children’s resources, and so much more—all at competitive prices in a family-friendly environment.

Please stop by today to let us know how we can serve you. And mark your calendars for our Grand Opening Celebration, which runs September 11 through October 9 with guest appearances from Bob, Larry, and LarryBoy from VeggieTales and Hermie from Hermie and Friends.

We have five stores to serve you:

Edina 952-927-7106
Woodbury 651-738-9200
Coon Rapids 763-252-1961
Maple Grove 763-420-3883
Burnsville 952-435-8600

Logos Bible Software

Logos 4 is robust enough for a pastor’s professional life, but easy and intuitive enough for his personal life as well. Logos 4 removes time-consuming hindrances so you can get right to the task of serious Bible study. It delivers faster and smarter searching, insights from your favorite author, and Greek and Hebrew tools that are designed for those who might not have had any training in the languages.

With things like passage analysis delivering an HD look at the grand narrative, Biblical People, Places, and Things delivering graphics that can easily be dropped into a presentation slide, and even an opening homepage that reads like an online newspaper delivering content from books that a pastor might not know he even had in his collection. So, Logos 4 delivers a powerful solution to pastors that is flexible and fits around the way they study the Bible.

Another thing Logos delivers is hands-on, personal presentations. With a large and talented national presentation team, Logos can come to your church and help you equip pastors, leaders, and laity. Check out a little about what Logos can do for you at logos.com/ministrydevelopment.

Gaba Bible Institute

Gaba Bible Institute will be sponsoring the Russian interpretation at this year’s national conference.

Africa needs leaders!—specifically, Christian leaders with a heart to share the gospel and compassion of Christ in the midst of pain and suffering. Gaba Bible Institute is an accredited evangelical Bible college located in the heart of East Africa that exists to train such leaders.

GBI opened its doors in 2007 with 35 students from Uganda, Congo and Rwanda. Today GBI now has 135 students from 9 African countries and over 60 alumni serving throughout East and Central Africa. To learn more about how you can participate with GBI in equipping Africa’s leaders please watch our 2 minute video.

95.3 Praise FM

95.3 Praise FM is a radio ministry in Minneapolis, MN dedicated to changing the way that people, churches and cities worship. Originating in Osakis, MN in 1985, Praise FM has grown from one station to four, with 95.3 Praise FM going on the air in November 2008.

In addition to our ministries in Minnesota and the Dakota’s, Praise FM has a specific heart for the nations and partners with ministries in Sweden, Africa, and the Cayman Islands. The 95.3 Praise FM signal is also streaming live online for people to listen from anywhere in the world. Within the past few months, people tuned in from 96 different nations and 42 language groups. They have seen that worship crosses generations, denominations and even language barriers.

The heart of 95.3 Praise FM is for listeners to experience the presence of God through the music and the hearing of God’s word. Our prayer is that this encounter would result in 3 things:

• A desire for God in personal daily worship
• A heart to honor God by living under authority and in community within the Church
• Obedience to God as a ministry to our families, workplace and community

Covenant Eyes

You know that the Internet is enticing your family to conform to the world. You can help renew your family’s mind with these five action points. Read more.

Pioneers

Pioneers teams are passionate about seeing God glorified by churches being planted among Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, tribal and unreligious people groups. As a sponsor of the 2010 Desiring God National Conference, we look forward to connecting with students, pastors, families and all those interested in exploring how they can expand the Kingdom among the unreached—both here and abroad.

This is the third and final video John Piper made before his leave. It is about experiencing spiritual breakthroughs through the gifts of other believers. (See the first one on justification and the second one on loving others.) It ends with some implications for how we do small groups.

Scroll down to read an edited transcript of the video.

The following is an edited transcript of the video.

I've been thinking a lot recently about relationships and about the way you being gifted one way and me being gifted another way relates to answers in prayer, or non-answers in prayer, or breakthroughs in struggles in life, or non-breakthroughs.

Here's what I’m thinking, and I just offer this to you to think about: suppose you've been praying about an issue in your life, say some intractable sin that doesn't seem to go away. You don't get the victory that you think you should have. You keep fighting it and that's an evidence that you're born again. And that's good, because none of us is without sin, and we have an Advocate and so we fight on.

But you'd like to see more victory. You've been praying for years and things haven't changed.

Now we think about possible reasons why God doesn't give answers, and sometimes we think of timing: "Well it’s just not the time yet. He's storing all my prayers up in a bottle. He's going to pour the prayers out in due time. And so the time will come."

And we have Joseph in the Bible who, no doubt, for 13 years was praying, "Lord, why was I sold into slavery? Why has it taken 13 years for me to discover the reason for all this pain in my life?" Then suddenly he discovers that he is going to be vice president of Egypt, he's going to save his family from starvation, he's going to be the heir of the Messiah—and now it all makes sense! But in those 13 years it didn’t.

But could it be that there are other reasons besides timing issues for why we don't get certain victories in answer to prayer? Here's the new idea. I’m sure its not new to everybody, but its been fresh to me. 

What if God has given a gift to another person in your small group or in the church, a gift of healing, or discernment, or knowledge, or miracles (I'm taking the list from 1 Corinthians 12)? You've been struggling with something. It could be physical. It could be psychological. It could be spiritual. It could be sin. Or it could be non-moral. And you're not getting anywhere. Could it be that God has a gift out there for you? And the gift is supposed to come not directly, vertically, in answer to your prayer in your little private room, "Lord fix me right now," but rather it’s supposed to come through another person?

Because I can’t think of any reason why God would create such a thing as spiritual gifts in the church if that were not the case. There are gifts of knowledge, discernment, miracles, faith, and healing that he means for you to have, but somebody else has the gift and you're not asking for the gift.

The implication is that in our small groups we're just really honest and we confess, "You know, I’ve been praying about this issue for a long time and God has seen it fit to this point not to give me the answer. And I’m just wondering that maybe he is waiting till I humble myself and come to you and say, ‘Would you pray for me and ask God whether you might have the gift of healing or the gift of the knowledge I need? Or the gift of faith, or whatever that will get a breakthrough for me?'"

So I just commend to you to reread 1 Corinthians 12-14 and think about the horizontal dimension of personal breakthroughs. God created a church! He didn't just create a series of individuals who go vertical with him and never take that vertical gifting, power, love, insight, and faith and bend it out horizontally to touch other people.

Lets grow together in this. Let’s avail ourselves of miracles, power, faith, knowledge, and discernment from others that God may have for us but we have not felt because we have not gone to the other people in a kind of community relationship or small group and asked.

Below is the video from last Wednesday's DG LIVE broadcast with Tullian Tchividjian. You can also download the audio.

Scroll down to whet your appetite with some of the juicier quotes we captured during the broadcast.

"Flight from God always leads downward and never culminates in vivacious life."

"The story of Jonah is the story of all of our lives . . . That's why the message of the gospel is so crucial even after we're saved."

"The greatest hindrance to gospel advancement is not idols outside the church but those inside."

"Don't ever create division in your church, ever."

"Legalism and liberalism are equally toxic."

"Imperatives minus indicatives equals impossibility."

"We actually obey more when we realize that our acceptance with God is based on Jesus and not us."

"We live against worldliness for the sake of the world."

Register for our National Conference before midnight tomorrow night and save $15. On September 2nd the price goes from $160 to $175.

There are only about 500 seats left, so sign up while there's still room!

Register now.