If you could step back from the noise and busyness — if you could, even for just a moment, get a panoramic snapshot of the Christian life — it would look like 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.

John Piper explains the picture,

Everything [in the Christian life] flows from the free grace of God in Christ. And everything is moving toward the fullest glory of God in us and through us. And between the foundation of grace and the goal of glory there is the power of grace daily arriving in our lives through faith, turning daily resolves and plans and purposes into deeds of faith, fitting us for glory.

Having preached this passage first in 1985, Piper freshly engages these truths again and des…

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One of the high points of the recent "Works of God" conference was Krista Horning's testimony. She began with the question, "How do I live with disability?" Then in eight minutes straight she exults in what God says to her in his word.

Stream or download "Krista Horning's Testimony."

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Check out Krista's book, Just the Way I Am. The remaining audio and video from the conference will be posted shortly.

In order to fulfill the Great Commission, we need to know whom Jesus wants us to invite to our Thanksgiving dinner.

John Piper said these words in 1980 when the fourth Thursday of November was right around the corner. As a new pastor wanting to lead his people to obey all of Jesus's commands, he opened to Luke 14:12–14.

[Jesus] said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you…

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In 1962 Don and Carol Richardson came into contact with a remote tribe in West New Guinea known as the Sawi people. They were cannabilistic headhunters without a written language, nor any clue about Jesus.

The Richardsons, along with their three children, preached the gospel to the Sawi people and witnessed a remarkable movement of God. The story is told in the best-selling book Peace Child and has inspired many to take the gospel to the furthest ends of the earth.

Just recently — fifty years after they first met the Sawi — the Richardsons returned to the village they once called home. This short 15-minute film from Pioneers documents that experience. It is one of the most amazing thing…

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A reality we don't deserve (eternally enjoying God) affords a price we're not able to pay (appeasing God's just wrath against our sin). But then there's Jesus.

As John Piper explains, "The gospel is the good news that God in Christ paid the price of suffering, so that we could have the prize of enjoying him forever."

Jesus died for us sinners to remove every barrier between us and the highest, fullest, deepest good, which is God himself. This truth is profoundly biblical and has characterized the theology of Bethlehem Baptist Church these past thirty years.

Considering two Scripture texts and a snapshot from church history, Piper shows that the "gospel-love of God" is the gift of himse…

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Sermons like these face us with a crucial question: Will we praise God's power and bow in glad submission or will we resist God's power and shake our fists?

God is sovereign over all things. Not a little bit sovereign. Not maybe-sorta-kinda sovereign. But absolutely sovereign. Everything that has happened or will happen is purposed by God to happen.

As a theological trademark of Bethlehem Baptist Church, John Piper expounds the biblical portrait of God's sovereignty and gives seven exhortations for why it is a precious foundational truth.

Stream or download this week's sermon.

Do you know what it means that God is your Father?

R W Glenn believes that many Christians miss out on experiencing the wonderful reality that we are truly loved. Because of Jesus, God's wrath toward us is turned away. We wake up each day accepted as his sons and daughters. "God has no reservations about us whatsoever and he marshals all of his omnipotence to do us good."

In the latest episode of Theology Refresh, David Mathis talks with Glenn about the vital doctrine of God's fatherhood, and even the sinister motivations behind rejecting this truth.

Stream or download this 14-minute podcast.

[Subscribe to Theology Refresh through iTunes.]

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Previous interviews from Theology Re…

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I love the Book of Psalms. They are authoritative models of prayer and worship and therefore we return to them often for help. "When we don't know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit intercedes for us..." — and read some psalms. And in my experience, it's the easiest book to short-circuit meaning for application. Because the theology is so relevant, we can subtly gloss over what the text says to focus on us and our situations. But remember it's only for us — by God about his Son for us.

So how might it look if we read like this? Say, Psalm 4? How would it look if we asked first, "what does this text say?" and then second, "what does it mean for me right now?"

Psalm 4:1–8,

¹  Answ…

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Thanks to everyone who joined us for this weekend's seminar on A Hunger for God.

The notes from Pastor John are now available (PDF) and the full audio and video will be added to the site soon.

 

Good Bible reading is about meaning and application. We come to the Bible asking two questions: first, what does this text say? And second, what does it mean for me right now?

What It Means

We ask the first question because God is real. The world exists because he created it. He is the originator and everything else the originated. And in this world he has made, meaning has meaning whether we know it or not. My one-year-old son doesn't understand me when I say "I love you, buddy". . . but I still do, and one day he'll get it. Meaning is more like steel than clay: it stands strong despite the number of hands on it. Remember that in God's economy "The Word became flesh," not "Flesh conjured…

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