The Triumph of Grace through Righteousness …
God's purpose in giving the law was so that, in the end, grace would reign through Christ's righteousness on our behalf.
The Free Gift of God is Eternal Life, Part 2 …
Christmas Eve Day
How the Spirit Does What the Law Could Not Do …
The law can't overcome your rebellion and make you a loving person. But the Spirit can.
God Did Not Spare His Own Son …
God always does what is good for us. If you believe that he gave his own Son for you, this is what you believe.
God's Word Stands: Not All Israel Is Israel, Part 2 …
God’s election of the children of promise is what guarantees that his word never fails.
Treasuring Christ Together, Part 2 …
Lessons in Love from 1 John
The Peril of Partiality …
Riches and Race in the Christian Church
Racial Harmony Sunday
Showing partiality toward others, either because of their race or their riches, reveals a lack of trust in Jesus.
All Things Are from God, Through God, and to God. The Glory Is All His …
Do you love the thought that you exist to make God look good?
Christ Overcame Evil with Good—Do the Same …
Palm Sunday
All Things Subject to the Risen Christ …
Easter Sunday
How to Welcome a Weak Brother …
How can a church hold together when some of its members are so different from one another?
Where Is God? …
The Supremacy of Christ in an Age of Terror
What does it mean that Christ is supreme over a world filled with tragedy?
The Kingdom of Heaven Is a Treasure …
The kingdom of God is so valuable that losing everything on earth, but getting the kingdom, is a happy trade-off.
The Wisdom of Men and the Power of God …
John Piper's Installation
In his first sermon as pastor at Bethlehem, John Piper explains the source of his authority and the reason for his fear.
Restful Words for Labor Day …
Summer Psalms
Sunday Evening Message
It seems that with this passage of Scripture, more than any other, to recite it is also to experience its reality. The psalm itself is green pasture, the psalm itself is still water, the psalm itself restores my soul.
How Is It Right to Justify the Ungodly? …
We unseat judges with indignation who acquit the guilty. Our moral sensibility is outraged when wrong and guilt are given legal sanction. Yet at the heart of our gospel stands the sentence: God justifies the ungodly who trust in him. God acquits the guilty. That is the gospel! But how can it be right for God to do that?
Christ Did Not Send Me to Baptize …
Baptism is an act of obedience to the command of Jesus (Matthew 28:19, 20). And for that very reason it should never divert our attention away from Christ onto a man. It should express our desire to rely on Christ alone for salvation and to boast only in him.
How Not to Talk to an Angel …
Sunday Evening Message
It is not wrong to want evidence for our faith. Belief is not groundless. But there is an evil in demanding signs beyond what a humble and open heart would require.
Pray for Kings and All in High Positions …
Let your prayers embrace all kinds of people: high and low, white and black, democrats and republicans, Soviet premiers and Iranian Ayatollahs. Enlarge your heart until it embraces the world.
What Do Answers to Prayer Depend On?, Part 2 …
God's Will
Our prayers should always aim not merely at our own satisfaction, but also at the benefit of others.
O, That You Knew the Terms of Peace! …
Palm Sunday
Jesus Christ is always eager and willing to make peace with anyone who will accept the terms of peace he offers.
The Holiness of God, Our Sin, and the Love of Jesus …
Maundy Thursday
God loves his holiness with infinite love and cherishes his purity. This is the starting point for understanding God and man and the world. If we don't start here everything goes askew.
Rivers From the Heart …
We are afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst, for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ.
Jesus Vs. the Occult …
Jesus is God's fullest revelation and the source of all the knowledge and power that is good for us to have.
Grace, Gratitude, and the Glory of God …
Thanksgiving Day
Gratitude is not an act of will power but the glad response of one who acknowledges grace.
The Conquest of Canaan …
If the old Joshua was victorious over the enemies of God, then how much more the new Joshua.
Jesus Is Precious Because We Yearn for Beauty …
We crave to be moved by some rare glimpse of greatness. We yearn for a vision of glory.
He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem …
Palm Sunday
Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of his death for sinners were not an afterthought. Jesus saw that the time had come and set his face to fulfill his mission: to die in Jerusalem for our sake.
Who Made Man's Mouth? …
How different, how wonderful the use of our mouths would be if we lived by faith in the God who made the mouth and not by sight—by looking at our own clumsy tongue.
He Will Send His Angel Before You …
We can know God's will and maintain trust in his help, if we are familiar with the trajectories of his Word.
Take Courage: You Build More Than You See …
Nothing you do is a trifle if you do it in the name of God. He will shake heaven and earth to fill your labor with splendor.
There Shall Be a Fountain Opened …
The fountain of forgiveness has been opened for you. And if you cleanse yourself through faith in that fountain, all the subsequent promises to God's people are yours.
Hosanna! …
Palm Sunday
Our English word "hosanna" comes from a Greek word "hosanna" which comes from a Hebrew phrase hoshiya na.
You Who Would Destroy the Temple and Build It in Three Days …
Good Friday
It is a supreme irony that the people at the cross should look on the dying Savior and mock him with their own misunderstanding of this saying.
The Law of Christ …
Bearing Each Other's Burdens
If we really care about a person's ultimate welfare, we will confront them with their sin as well as comfort them in their trouble.
Creation, Fall, Redemption, and the Holy Spirit …
If I'm so depraved that I can't do anything good, what do you expect me to do?
Maintain the Unity of the Spirit …
What is the kind of unity that will bring honor and credit to our high calling?
The Lord, a God Merciful and Gracious …
God's self-sufficiency and sovereign freedom are the very sources from which his mighty mercy overflows.
A New Year's Plea: Plan! …
Jesus planned for our joy; we ought to plan for his glory.
Those Whom He Foreknew He Predestined …
Sunday Evening Message
The glory of the preeminence Christ is the ultimate goal of predestination.
Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit Who Mourn …
Blessed are those who feel keenly their helplessness and their unworthiness and their emptiness and are driven by them to the grace of God.
Our Hope: The Redemption of Our Bodies …
There is coming a day when our bodies are going to be redeemed and there will be no more groaning.
Preparing to Receive Christ: Willing to Do the Will of God …
The great obstacle to recognizing the truth of Christ is not deficient resources but deep rebellion against God.
Elders, Pastors, Bishops, and Bethlehem …
Sunday Evening Message
There were two ongoing offices in the NT church for the management and care of the church: elders and deacons.
The Anatomy of Backsliding …
Sunday Evening Message
We need to see how the reality of imperfection turns up in the saints of Scripture and how they handled it.
He Is Like a Refiner's Fire …
If God were only an incinerating fire, heaven would be empty. And if he were no fire, heaven would be empty.
Let Christ Be All in This Building! …
Let us be vigilant to keep Christ as the foundation of our church.
The Great Invitation: A High Way for Low Sinners …
Everybody needs to call upon the Lord—to seek the Lord right now while he may be found.
Battling the Unbelief of a Haughty Spirit …
The battle against pride is the battle against unbelief. The fight for humility is the fight of faith.
The Guilt of Giving Part of God's Counsel …
It is possible for us to be guilty of another person's final lostness.
The Sacrifice of Praise …
It is your sacred duty and joy to praise God continually with your lips.
What Are We Up Against? …
Satan is not opposed to most ordinary things you do, as long as you do them like the rest of the world.
Do You See the Joy of God in the Sun? …
Through the sky God ministers humility and hope and healing and happiness.
God Sent His Servant to Bless You …
God is moving toward you today with blessing.
The Death of a Spirit-Filled Man …
Death is not just defeated and kept from destroying us; it is enslaved and made the servant of God's people.
Asa's Folly …
The very nature of God is that he is eager to show his power on behalf of people who trust him.
How to Pray for a Desolate Church …
God will accomplish his purpose for the church, even if he choses to use a remnant to do it.
The Echo and Insufficiency of Hell, Part 1 …
Behold the Kindness and Severity of God
The horror of hell is an echo of the infinite worth of God's glory.
Sound Judgment, One Body, Several Parts …
Why doesn't God give everyone the same faith and gifts?
Renewing the Covenant for the Sake of God's Name …
God is a great, mighty, awesome, covenant-keeping, loving God, who will help us, and who will show his love for us through the covenant.
What Happens When You Die? At Home with the Lord …
Even though Paul's outer man is decaying, his inner man is renewed day-by-day through his faith in the unseen weight of glory.
The Seed of the Word and the Fruit of Love …
The power to love comes through hoping in God.
How To Suffer for Doing What Is Right …
Radical Christianity, real Christianity, makes a difference.
The Depth of Christ's Love: Its Cost …
The most worthy of living, the least worthy of dying. This is the life Jesus gave for you—that you might live.
The Blinding Effects of Serving God …
It dishonors God to treat him as a master in need of slave labor. What honors God is not slave labor, but childlike faith in his all-sufficiency.
Incentives to Strive in Prayer …
God calls us from time to time, and some of us as a kind of vocation, to strive—to struggle, and wrestle, and persist, and prevail in prayer.
The Danger of Drifting from the Word …
Life in this world is like a river, not a lake. And if you don't listen earnestly to Jesus, you will drift down to destruction.
All of Life as Worship …
God is worshiped when we seek to express and increase our satisfaction in all that he is for us in Jesus Christ.
Take Care How You Listen! Part 1 …
For Whoever Has, to Him More Shall be Given
There are four ways to hear a sermon, but only one of them leads to life.
Facts: Seen and Unseen …
When the Bible says, "We walk by faith, not by sight," it doesn't mean there wasn't any visible evidence or that there isn't any today.
Luther, Bunyan, Bible and Pain …
One of God's gifts to us in suffering is that we see and experience depths of his Word that a life of ease would never yield.
O Be Not Mere Shadows, Echoes, and Residue …
Break free from the epidemic of the manward spirit of our age, and set yourself to live in the light of the Lord.
A Prayer for Bethlehem One Hundred Years From Now …
To Be Put in the Time Capsule in the New Building
Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever, we are bold to pray for you who will live and minister decades from now.
Treasuring Christ Together: The North Campus Vision …
How does a church address earthly needs but not neglect its spiritual task?
Dying for the Glory of Christ …
Death is our last opportunity on earth to make much of the supreme value of knowing Jesus Christ.
Was Katrina Intelligent Design? …
God will always be guilty of high crimes for those who think they’ve never committed any.
For Tom Steller on His 10th Anniversary at Bethlehem Baptist …
John Piper poetically commemorates a partner in ministry.
What Do You Believe About Justification By Faith Alone? …
Read a summary of this doctrine and listen to John Piper briefly explain it.
