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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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.

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).

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).

Today is the anniversary of Saint Augustine’s birth.  It is a particularly special day for me because no man — with the exception of Jesus — has had as much impact on my life as Augustine.  I have said this before, and I think it is true, that, when I die, Augustine’s feet will be the 2nd I get in line to kiss — that is only after I have spent a day or two wiping tears from the feet of the Lord himself.

About 4 years ago, I picked up a copy of Augustine’s City of God.  Shortly thereafter I began reading the Confessions.  In each of these books I saw for the first time something I had never seen before.  I saw a man desperately, unashamedly in love with God, and he made no attempts to downplay it out of a fear of looking silly or weak.  Augustine was a lover of God, who has only been rivaled in his lavish, penned expression of love for God by King David.

As I read Augustine’s account of his own depraved and sinful life — a story that was routinely interrupted by affectionate praise for the Savior he loved — I was amazed.  I’d never seen anything like it.  His language was so full and overflowing with emotion that it made my own heart “throb with a bewildering passion.”

And at the center of it was one sentence that changed my life:

He loves You too little who loves anything together with You which he loves not for Your sake.

Anything, Augustine? I asked.  Anything, he replied through the pages he’d left me.

I loved a lot of things and a lot of people, and most of them I didn’t love for God’s sake.  Was it for God’s glory that I watched TV, listened to music, or posted on my blog?  Was it with God in mind that I spoke when around my friends?  Was it love for God motivating my love for my family?  Was it for God’s sake that I ate and drank, slept and got out of bed, put on my clothes and breathed?

It wasn’t.  And I was terrified.  More than that, I saw something Augustine had that I wanted.  God became more glorious to me than he had ever been before.  I wanted to know this great God who brought Augustine to his knees before him, tearing his hair and beating his breast.  I found myself on my own knees, mourning over my sin and weeping in joy.  My experience was like that of Augustine 16 centuries earlier:

I began to search for a means of gaining the strength I needed to enjoy You, but I could not find this means until I embraced the mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ.

I thank God for Augustine, for his providence in bringing him to me, and for the sentence that changed my life.

If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings (Adoniram Judson).

From How Few There Are Who Die So Hard: The Cost of Bringing Christ to Burma.

Sometimes talking about Jesus makes us vulnerable — especially if it’s done seriously and with open hearts. It makes us vulnerable because the cross of Christ declares our failures, flaws, insecurities — all the things we don’t want others to know about us — to the world. For people who want to boast in themselves, it is very difficult to boast in Christ.

But merely talking about Christ and boasting in Christ are different things. It is far too easy for us to cover up our insecurities by talking about Christ without boasting in him. We discuss things in very theoretical, theological ways. We make generalizations and speak in broad terms rather than speaking about our own needs. We choose safe, stale language to describe ourselves rather than heart-felt language which opens us up to mockery or criticism. We maintain a veneer of control over our lives despite the fact that our hearts are full of turmoil. We fail to talk about someone we love and instead talk about facts concerning him.

The problem is quite often not what we say but how we say it. We are masters at dodging the guilt and shame we’re due. And we do it because we are more afraid of the sinners we speak to than we are in love with the One we speak about.

But Paul did something entirely different. He boasted in his weaknesses in order to glorify Christ (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). When we aren’t most vulnerable, Christ isn’t most glorified because he died for us while we were yet weak. Be vulnerable for Christ’s sake.

Jesus was a “man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3) who told his followers to deny themselves and follow him to Golgotha with crosses on their backs.  He said those who try to save their lives will lose them, but “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). The apostle Paul said, “I die every day!” (1 Corinthians 15:31). The Christian life is a life of death. So for the sake of those who want to lose their lives for Christ, here are 12 ways to die while playing volleyball. (more…)

We tend to have permanently casual relationships that never grow into real intimacy.  There are things we know about each other, but they fool us into thinking that we know the human beings who live within the borders of those details.  So we fail to pursue them with good questions.  This sets the stage for all kinds of misunderstandings.  Our effectiveness as ambassadors is blunted because we don’t know others well enough to know where change is needed or where God is actively at work.

Think about it.  Most of the conversations you had today were mundane and rather self-protective.  We spend most of our time talking about things that are of little personal consequence — the weather, politics, sports, and entertainment.  There is nothing wrong with this except that it allows us to hide who we really are. . . . We are all skilled at newsy but personally protective conversations (Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands 163).