Over the years there have been a handful of sermons that I continually return to.  They have significant meaning for me because in these handful of sermons, God met me and radically altered the course of my life.

And the single sermon that I have returned to more than any other is John Piper’s Thankful for the Love of God! Why? I first listened to this sermon when I was a freshman, 6 ½ years ago.  Since that time I have listened to it dozens upon dozens of times — even a dozen times in one month on occasion.

The reason I return to this sermon is because it’s one of the clearest places I know of to hear something I often need to be reminded:  God’s love is greater than you ever dreamed.  And if you like being loved by God because being loved makes you feel good, you have no idea how much God loves you, because he loves you way more than that.  At great cost to himself, he has given you what you need most — himself.

God’s love is his doing whatever needs to be done, at whatever cost, so that we will see and be satisfied with the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Let me say it again. The love of God is his doing whatever needs to be done, at whatever cost to himself or to us, so that we will see and be satisfied by the love of God in Christ forever and ever (Piper).

I really needed to listen to it again tonight.

Thank you, Dad, for loving me enough not to give me what I think will make me happy, but what will make me eternally happy.  You are true beauty and grace.  I love you.

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DA Carson:

Paul refuses to circumcise Titus, even when it was demanded by many in the Jerusalem crowd, not because it didn’t matter to them, but because it mattered so much that if he acquiesced, he would have been giving the impression that faith in Jesus is not enough for salvation: one has to become a Jew first, before one can become a Christian. That would jeopardize the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus.

To create a contemporary analogy: If I’m called to preach the gospel among a lot of people who are cultural teetotallers, I’ll give up alcohol for the sake of the gospel. But if they start saying, “You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol,” I’ll reply, “Pass the port” or “I’ll think I’ll have a glass of Beaujolais with my meal.” Paul is flexible and therefore prepared to circumcise Timothy when the exclusive sufficiency of Christ is not at stake and when a little cultural accommodation will advance the gospel; he is rigidly inflexible and therefore refuses to circumcise Titus when people are saying that Gentiles must be circumcised and become Jews to accept the Jewish Messiah (The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World 145).

HT: Justin Taylor

Josh Harris discusses the dangers of media and what it means to lop off your hand (Matthew 5:30):

This year I was with C. J. and a group of friends watching the Super Bowl. I don’t think I saw more than two commercials the whole time. C. J. had the remote, and as soon as commercials came on he’d switch to C-SPAN, possibly the safest channel available. Why does he do it? Doesn’t he know how entertaining and interesting the commercials during the Super Bowl can be? Yes, and he also knows how often they use sex to sell their products. He knows that nothing he might miss is worth exposing himself to lustful images. . . .

At times when I’ve traveled and stayed at hotels I have sinned against God by mindlessly surfing through the channels.  I don’t necessarily stop and view something sinful, but I surf by it knowing there’s a good chance something will flash before my eyes.  God has helped me to see my own sinful desire in those moments.  Even though I’m just flipping by, this is an expression of lust.  Because of my poor track record, I’ve made it my habit not to even turn the TV on in a hotel (Josh Harris, Sex is Not the Problem, Lust Is).

Her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little (Luke 7:47).

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This track is from Relevant Revolution.

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He believed that this righteousness was the gift of God. Verse 11: “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God,I thank you that I am not like other men.’” He gives God the credit for making him upright and devout like he is. “I thank you that I am morally upright and religiously devout.” In other words, this man is not what theologians call a Pelagian—a person who believes he can make himself righteous without God’s help. . . .

The problem is not whether the man himself has produced the righteousness he has or whether God has produced it. The problem is: He trusts in it. This is his confidence. Verse 9: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselvesthat they were righteous.” Now make sure you see what this is saying. It is not saying that he is trusting in himself to make himself righteous. No. He says explicitly he is thanking God for that. He is not trusting in himself to make himself righteous. He is trusting in himself that he is righteous with the righteousness that he believes God has worked in him. That is what he is trusting.

As far as we know, this Pharisee was a total advocate of the sovereignty of God. As far as we know, he would have said, “Not I but the grace of God in me has worked this righteousness.” He says, “I thank you, God, that I have this righteousness.” That was not his mistake. His mistake was that he trusted in this apparently God-produced righteousness for justification. . . .

He is not presented as a legalist—one who tries to earn his salvation. That is not the issue. One thing is the issue: This man was morally upright. He was religiously devout. He believed God had made him so. He gave thanks for it. And that is what he looked to and trusted in for his justifying righteousness before God—for his justification. And he was dead wrong to do so. . . .

Don’t trust what God has worked in you. Trust in Christ alone (John Piper, Did Jesus Preach the Gospel of Evangelicalism?).

John Owen for a new generation:

I could not attribute any rational meaning to a single act, let alone to my whole life. I simply felt astonished that I had failed to realize this from the beginning. It has all been common knowledge for such a long time. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (and they had already arrived) to those dear to me, and to myself, and nothing will remain other than the stench and the worms. Sooner or later my deeds, whatever they may have been, will be forgotten and will no longer exist. What is all the fuss about then? How can a person carry on living and fail to perceive this? That is what is so astonishing! It is only possible to go on living while you are intoxicated with life; once sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere trick, and a stupid trick! That is exactly what it is: there is nothing either witty or amusing, it is only cruel and stupid (Tolstoy).

Tim Keller, A Reason for Living:
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You might decide simply to have as good a time as possible. The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is, on these terms, so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures. You can’t except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behaviour of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time”; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so afar you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live (CS Lewis).

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain
In Thy service, pain is pleasure,
With Thy favor, loss is gain
I have called Thee Abba Father,
I have stayed my heart on Thee
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather;
All must work for good to me.

(Henry Lyte)

Dr. Frank James III tells the story of the martyrdom of a slave girl who, in her death, became a great witness to the cross of Christ.

I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Colossians 1:24).