“Everybody talks about living and worshiping to the glory of God. And I find that something now is missing in the heart of it and the mind of it unless they are really happy about the fact that the most God-centered person in the universe is God. That God loves His glory more than He loves them. If we are only God-centered because He is man-centered, we are man-centered! But if we are God-centered because we want to get on board with God’s God-centeredness, then God is God and we are not. God chose us to the praise of the glory of His grace. God has from eternity reached out and made us His own that He might be made much of. God chose you for God. Isaiah 43:6 “bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who I created for My glory.” You were made for God’s glory. There’s no doubt about why you exist. You exist to make God look good like He really is, that’s why you’re on planet earth. To draw attention to the magnificence of God, you were created for that, to the glory and praise of God. Oh, if we could just remember the beginning of sentences when we get to the end, our whole lives would be different. Christ suffered and died on the cross to vindicate the righteousness of God because God had passed over so many sins. Get that? Hardly anybody in America gets that. What the cross was designed to solve is the unrighteousness of God in forgiving sinners. You know its unrighteous to free rapists and murderers and say, ‘Oh, let it go.’ The whole bible says it is an abomination to justify the wicked. This is unjust to let off so many criminals that fill this room who rage against the living God or are indifferent to God. He kills it, punishes it, He hates it, He pours out wrath upon it, He condemns it. ‘It’ is called ‘Jesus crucified’.” - John Piper (transcribed from "Real"; a Sermon Jam from relevantrevolution.com)

“What does it mean (number one) that God foreknew those He referred to in [Romans 8:28)? ‘Because those whom He foreknew,’ what does that mean? Some would say, many would say, it simply means that God foresees who will believe on Him and then He decides what will become of believers. Now there are two assumptions in that interpretation that are wrong, unbiblical, and which make that view impossible to believe. That he simply foresees who is going to believe, on their own, and then decides what the destiny of those believers will be.

Here’s assumption number one that is not true: it assumes that ultimately we, in our own will power, provide the decisive, ultimate cause of our faith. That’s the point of that interpretation. That God only foresees people, not resting in God to provide the ultimate, decisive, faith that they need to believe, but producing, on their own, the decisive ultimate ground and cause of their faith. That is a false assumption. It’s false elsewhere in the NT, because faith is described a gift from of God in Philippians 1:29 and Ephesians 2:8-9 and 2 Tim 2:24 and Matthew 16:17 and Jeremiah 32:40, and other places. Faith is God’s work, it is God’s gift, and not only that, it is shown to be such here in this very context.

Let’s look just briefly so that you can see. You don’t have to go anywhere else but right here in Romans 8:29-30 to see it. Look at verse 30, ‘those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified.’ [ESV] Now think about that with me. Everybody who is called is justified. You know and I know, from the book of Romans, that nobody is justified except through faith. Romans 5:1, ‘therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God.’ Nobody is justified except they believe in Jesus, but this text says [that] everybody who’s called is justified. Not, ‘some of those who are called are justified’, namely those who choose to be, but everybody who is called is justified which means everybody who is called believes. How can that be? How can you say, ‘everybody is called believes? Aren’t some called who say “no” to the call?’ No! Now I’m rehearsing an old sermon from five weeks ago, so I can’t give it all, but here’s the summary statement. When God calls effectually, it’s like Jesus saying to Lazarus, ‘Lazarus, come forth,’ and he comes forth. Dead men live when God calls. When God called you to Himself effectually, in and through the preaching, the preaching of the gospel is not the effectual call of God. It’s the general call that goes out to everybody. In and through the gospel comes this mighty, ‘Piper, Live,’ and you live, and the cry of the newborn baby is faith. Therefore, this text will not allow us to buy the assumption that foreknowledge is simply a foreknowing of a faith which we produce on our own, without the decisive, ultimate, enabling of God. That’s clear, and therefore this interpretation won’t stand; that foreknowing is simply foreseeing self-wrought faith, it isn’t. It’s seeing God-wrought faith.

Here’s a second assumption that will make that interpretation not work. The interpretation that says all that foreknowledge is, is the foreseeing of human produced faith so that it will then decide what will become of them fails to give the meaning to the word ‘know’ in ‘foreknow’ a broad, biblical meaning that would make more sense out of this text. For example, let me read for you a half-a-dozen texts about ‘knowing’, and you supply the meaning. I might chip in a suggestion as I go along, but it will be plain to you what knowing means, and then keep this text in mind as I read these. In Genesis 18:19 God says of Abraham, ‘I have known him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord.’ Every English translation translates ‘y-da’ as choose, which baffles me, they shouldn’t. That is the meaning, but you ought to translate the word ‘know’ [as] ‘know’ so that people like you can read it and learn the meaning of ‘know’ for Romans 8:29. It’s not good when translators interpret, that’s another issue. In Amos 3:2 God says to the people of Israel, ‘You only have I known among all the families of the earth.’ He knew about all the families, but only chose Israel. In Matthew 7:23 Jesus said to the hypocrites at the judgment day, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ What does that mean? I never knew about you? I never knew you were on the earth? I never knew anything about your life? No. I never knew you, I never made you mine, I never loved you with electing love. Psalm 1:6 says, ‘The Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.’ He knows about the way of the wicked too. But he knows the way of the righteous in the sense of approving and recognizing and loving. In Hosea 13:5 God says to Israel, ‘I knew you in the wilderness, In the land of drought,’ meaning he took note of your plight and cared for you. And Genesis 4:1 says, ‘Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.’ That is, he made her his, and knew her intimately and loved her.

If you don’t know that biblical background of the word ‘know’, so much richer than our heady word ‘know’, it will be hard, I think, to put a proper meaning on verse 29. ‘Whom He foreknew,’ cared for, loved, chose, made His own. Because of all those texts I think John Stott and John Murray are exactly right when both of them say, ‘”Know” . . . is used in a sense practically synonymous with “love” . . . “Whom he foreknow” . . . is therefore virtually equivalent to "whom he foreloved.”’ Foreknowledge, is ‘sovereign, distinguishing love’ (John Stott, quoting Murray, Romans, p. 249). It's virtually the same as set your affection on and choose for your own.

So the meaning of the first act of God that guarantees Romans 8:28 is that God foreknows his own people in the sense that he chooses them and loves them and cares for them. All things work together for good for those who love God and are called because they are foreknown." - John Piper,

“Foreknown, Predestined, Conformed to Christ” preached on 8/4/02, radio broadcast 3/30/07. This quote is a compilation of transcribing (mine) some of the audio to supplement desiringgod.org’s posted manuscript http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2002/98_Foreknown_Predestined_Conformed_to_Christ/

“God’s call is almighty, and very different from my call. I’m a preacher; I call you to faith every week. I call you to love God; I call you to follow Christ; I call you to embrace Him; I call you to treasure Him. I call you week after week, and that is not the same as the divine call.

What’s the difference? My call is general, God’s call is specific.
My call offers hope, God’s call creates hope. My call offers life,
God’s call, in and through mine, gives life. My call commands you to love God, God’s call through mine grants what He commands.” - John Piper “All things for Good, Part 3a”, Desiring God Radio 3/28/07

“God calls a person to Christ by bringing them into contact with the gospel of Jesus Christ and then making their dead hearts alive so that they hear the gospel as irresistibly true and beautiful.

God calls a person to Christ by bringing them into the hearing, or the exposure or contact with the gospel (it could be a tract, it could be radio talk, it could be a sermon, it could be the Bible); he brings them into contact with the Word of God in the gospel of Christ Crucified and risen and He uses that word, in and through it, to make their dead, unbelieving, hostile hearts awaken and come alive so that they hear and see the gospel of Christ as irresistibly true and beautiful.” John Piper “All things for Good, Part 3a”, Desiring God Radio 3/28/07

“How many children, now I’m going to be dangerous here but this is a warning to parents, how many children’s testimonies say that they were scared when they heard about hell and wanted to escape and so prayed to receive Jesus? Now, I believe that in His mercy, God works in little children’s hearts often at those moments so that there is more than fear of hell going on. There really is a little seed of delight in God, love for God, love for Jesus. If there isn’t, they’re not saved. To embrace Jesus as a fire insurance policy and not a beloved savior is not salvation. To embrace Him as the forgiver of sins and not to embrace Him as the lover of our soul that satisfies our desires so that we want to be with Him forever as the result of our forgiveness is not salvation.

Do you know why we love to be forgiven? Do you know why we love justification? Do you know why we love escape from hell? Do you know why we love the promise of heaven? Because all of those things do two things. One, they show us the kind of God we have and two they get us there, they get us to Him. That’s why they’re precious. Who cares about forgiveness of sins unless it means reconciliation with our Father who satisfies our souls in relationship? Forgiveness means nothing if it doesn’t produce that. Neither does justification, neither does escape from hell. ‘Heaven without Jesus,’ if that is attractive to you, you’re not saved.” - John Piper (“All Things for Good” by John Piper, originally preached June 9, 2002; radio broadcast 3/23/07)

“You’re not a Christian if you only love what you would have loved without being confronted with a God-centered God. If God is only a means to your self advancement and exaltation, rather than your seeing in Him something infinitely glorious as a god consumed with the manifestation of His glory, then you need to check your conversion?” - John Piper (“God's Passion for His Supremacy, Part 1 3/16/07”)

“Your passion for the supremacy of God in all things is based squarely on God’s passion for the supremacy of God in all things. Your God-centeredness, if it is going to last, if it is going to endure, has to be rooted in God’s God-centeredness. If you want God to be supreme in your life, you have to see and believe and love the truth that God is supreme in the life of God. If yo want God to be your treasure so that you value God more than anything, you have to see and believe that God’s treasure is God.” - John Piper (John Piper – “God's Passion for His Supremacy, Part 1 3/16/07”)

“No, you don't need to experiment with particular sins in order to know the power of sin in your life. Think of it this way. Someone says: How can you really know the power of the temptation to lust – say to look at Internet nudity – if you've never given in and experienced it? Let me give an answer in a parable. There are three men – women, you supply the necessary changes to make the parable fit your situation – and each of the three stands beside a pit of lewdness and sin. Three ropes extend out of the pit, one bound around each man's waist. The strength of this narrow cord is one-hundred-pound test.

The first man begins to be pulled into the pit that looks exciting, but that he knows is deadly. Five pounds of pressure, ten pounds, fifteen pounds. He resists and fights back. Twenty pounds, twenty-five. He digs in his heels with all his might. Thirty pounds, thirty-five pounds, and the rope starts to squeeze and he stops resisting and jumps in. Click goes the mouse button.

The second man begins to be pulled into the pit. Five pounds of pressure, ten pounds, fifteen pounds. He resists and fights back. Twenty pounds, twenty-five pounds. He digs in his heels. Thirty pounds, thirty-five pounds, and the rope starts to squeeze. He says, No! and fights back. Forty pounds, forty-five pounds, fifty pounds, fifty-five pounds. It's harder to breathe as the rope tightens around his stomach and it begins to hurt. Sixty pounds, and he stops resisting and jumps into the pit. Click.

The third man begins to be pulled into the pit. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five pounds of pressure. He resists and fights back. Thirty, thirty-five, forty, and the rope starts to squeeze. He says, No! and fights back. Fifty pounds, sixty. It's harder to breathe as the rope tightens around his stomach and begins to hurt. Seventy pounds and his feet start to slip toward the pit. He cries out for help, and reaches out to grab a branch – shaped like a cross. In the distance he sees his wife going about her business, trusting him; he sees his children playing, and in their hearts admiring him. And beyond them all, he sees Jesus Christ with a gash in his side standing, with both hands lifted and fists clenched and smiling. And filled with passion, the third man holds fast. Seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five pounds, and the rope cuts into his sides and the pain stabs. Ninety, ninety-five and the tears flow unbidden down his cheeks. One hundred and the rope snaps. No click.

Question: which of these men knows the full power of temptation?

If this were a message on lust I would look around this room and say, "Are there any soldiers here? Does anyone in this room have blood on his shirt and scars on his side? Do you know the power of temptation? Or do you just jump in before its power is spent?" - John Piper

“So if you put stock in the inspired word of God as not just creating arguments out of nothing, but as being rooted in history and therefore able to relate to future real-life history, namely our lives, I would say the denial of the historical person of Adam is a gospel-threatening denial.” - John Piper

(“Adam, Christ, and Justification” by John Piper (Desiring God Radio broadcast 9/12/2006))

"’In Him’, don’t miss those two last, little, explosive, words. What this teaches is that because of our union with Him, because we are ‘in Him’, we become righteous [in] the same way Jesus became sinful. How did Jesus become sinful? Did He become sinful by sinning? No, nor do we become righteous by doing righteousness. He became sinful by having God recon to His account my sin, and I become righteous by having God recon to my account, His righteousness. And if that isn’t the best news in all the world, I don’t know what is because I know that in this life, both biblically and experientially, I’m not going to ever arrive at a point where I would qualify to be accepted by God. Ever! Therefore I must have the qualification from another, and it is His. And then the question is, ‘How do I get it?’ And the answer is ‘In Christ!’ United to Jesus, my sin is on Him, his righteousness is mine, and do you then see how huge this issue is? [Do you see] how important being ‘in Christ’ is? Union with Christ is not a throw-away, minor doctrine; it is at the center [of our doctrine]." - John Piper

(“United with Christ in Death and Life” by John Piper 10/8/2000. I personally transcribed and added the information in the brackets of this transcription.)

“Try to understand another person's view before you criticize it. The rule that Dr. Fuller used to teach us back in seminary was that if you can't restate a person's view to their own satisfaction, so that they hear that you've got it, then you're probably not ready to criticize it publicly.” - John Piper

(This was transcribed from Piper's commentary before the Desiring God radio broadcast of “United with Christ in Death and Life, Part 2a” on 10/9/06.)

“And I want to make sure that you understand; saving faith is not a believing in something you don’t like. Saving faith is not believing in a person [that] you don’t cherish and treasure and love. Saving faith is a believing in and a receiving of a treasure or it does not save.” - John Piper

(“Dead to the Law, Serving in the Spirit, Part 1a” Desiring God Broadcast aired on November 24, 2006 that was originally preached on January 28, 2001.)

“You must teach children ‘NO!’ You will be spanked if you do what you want here. And if you continue [to follow your own will] to the end of your life you’ll go to hell, which is why we spank lovingly. If kids don’t learn the meaning of the wrath of God and the love of God from their parents, who love them, where are they going to learn it? [If] somebody tries, later on, to convince them that a loving God is also a wrathful God, if they haven’t seen that in daddy – that daddy can hug, and kiss, and roll around on the floor, and be sweet and pure and kind and gentle, and really have fire in his eyes when you disobey – if a kid can’t put that together in a parent, how’s he going to put it together in God?” - John Piper

(“Dead to the Law, Serving in the Spirit, Part 3” by John Piper, originally preached on February 11, 2001 (Transcribed from the 11/30/2006 audio Netcast))

“I don’t know what you feel about the prosperity gospel, but I’ll tell you what I feel about it. Hatred. It is not the gospel. And it is being exported from this country to Africa and Asia selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor. ‘Believe this message, and your pigs won’t die and your wife won’t have miscarriages. And you’ll have rings on your fingers and coats on your backs.’ That’s coming out of America! People that ought to be giving our money and our time and our lives, instead selling them a bunch of crap called ‘gospel’. And here’s the reason it is so horrible: When was the last time that any American, African, Asian ever said Jesus is all-satisfying because you drove a BMW? Never! They’ll say, ‘Did Jesus give you that? Yeah? Well, I’ll take Jesus.’ That’s idolatry, that’s not the gospel. That’s elevating gifts above Giver. I’ll tell you what makes Jesus look beautiful. It’s when you smash your car and your little girl goes flying through the windshield and lands, like I was with a little girl on 11th avenue two weeks ago, dead on the street, for three hours before the police would let her go, and you say through the deepest possible pain, ‘God is enough. He is good; He will take care of us; He will satisfy us; He will get us through this. He is our treasure. Whom have I in heaven but You? And on earth there is nothing that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart and my little girl may fail but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever. That makes God look glorious, as God, not as giver of cars or safety or health. Oh, how I pray that Birmingham will be purged of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. Indeed America would be purged. And that the Christian church would be marked by suffering for Christ. God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him in the midst of loss, not prosperity.” - John Piper

“We are not here to pamper you, or to add just a little more zing to your marriage, or mere chastity to your singleness. We’re here to prepare you to cut off your hand, and gouge out your eye, and, if necessary, be beheaded in the cause of the Supremacy of Christ in this world.”

(John Piper “Sex and the Supremacy of Christ” conference, September 24, 2004)