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John Piper (1946 - Present)
Read freely text sermons and articles by the speaker John Piper in text and pdf format. is a Calvinistic Baptist Christian preacher and author currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His books include ECPA Christian Book Award winners Spectacular Sins, What Jesus Demands from the World, Pierced by the Word, and God's Passion for His Glory, and bestsellers Don't Waste Your Life and The Passion of Jesus Christ. The evangelical organization Desiring God is named for his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986).
In 1980, after what he described as an "irresistible call of the Lord to preach", Piper became Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has been ministering ever since. Piper hit the evangelical scene after the publication of his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986) and has continued to publish dozens of other books further articulating this theological perspective. In 1994, he founded Desiring God Ministries, which provides all of Piper's sermons and articles from the past three decades, and most of his books online free of charge, as well as offering for sale books, CDs, and DVDs and regularly hosting conferences.
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showing from 1 to 50 of 124 articles
A Celebration of Baptism
April 18, 1982
Acts 2:36-42
Just before Jesus came on the scene "preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel,"' (Mk. 1:14,15), another man, John the Baptist, h ... read more
A Message From the King
Preaching is not just explaining or teaching. Preaching is heralding. Preaching is what a town crier does when there is a message from the king.
He gathers a group of people and says, Hear ye, hear ye, be it known to you today that by royal order of ... read more
A Woman Who Fears the Lord Is to Be Praised
ay 10, 1981
Proverbs 31:30
In nineteen hundred sixty six
I happened on a girl,
And spent two years a-pondering
The value of that pearl.
She has a face and has a heart
All full of love and filling,
And so I sold my singleness
All fifty years ... read more
All the Prophets Proclaimed These Days
All the Prophets Proclaimed These Days
Acts 3:17-26
In Acts Chapter 3 Peter and John heal a lame man at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem. He follows them into the temple walking and leaping and praising God, and the people are filled with wonder and amazement. So Peter seizes the oppor ... read more
Alone in a Big Church
September 20, 1981
Ephesians 4:11-12
A CALL TO SMALL TOGETHERNESS I have a deep confidence that God's hand is upon us for good here at Bethlehem in the calling of our ministers. Let me describe briefly what I think the Lord is doing and what he aim ... read more
And All the Earth Shall Own Him Lord
Festival of Mission
October 24, 1982
Philippians 2:9-11
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every ... read more
Be Filled with the Spirit
March 8, 1981
Ephesians 5:18
The apostle Paul commands in Ephesians 5:18 that we be filled with the Spirit. Therefore, I want to try to answer two questions today. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? And, How can we be filled with the Sp ... read more
Believe in Your Heart That God Raised Jesus From the Dead
Easter Sunday
April 11, 1982
Romans 9:30-10:10
What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did n ... read more
Better Never to Have Known the Way
May 30, 1982
2 Peter 2:11-22
Chapter one of 2 Peter is a positive, encouraging summons for us to confirm our call and election by availing ourselves of God's power for godliness through faith in his precious and very great promises. Chapter two is ... read more
Calling All Clay Pots
A Celebration of Ministry
September 12, 1982
2 Corinthians 4
I would like to try to persuade you of two things this morning: first, that every Christian has received a gift from God which he is responsible to use for the good of the church and for ... read more
Can God Spread a Table in the Wilderness?
November 22, 1981
CAN GOD SPREAD A TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS? There are shorter ways to get from Egypt to Palestine than through the wilderness of Sinai. Mount Sinai is about 200 miles out of the waywhich is bad enough if you are driving a car, but if y ... read more
Christ and Cancer
Romans 8:18-28
Before I entered college I hardly gave a thought to cancer and terminal illness. But ever since those college days death by disease has walked beside me all the way. Two of my college acquaintances died of leukemia and cancer of the ly ... read more
Christ Did Not Send Me to Baptize
1 Corinthians 1:10-17
It is surprising to me that Paul would say, "Christ did not send me to baptize," when, in fact, one of the last things Jesus said to His disciples was, "Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Fat ... read more
Christmas As the End of History
December 20, 1981
CHRISTMAS AS THE END OF HISTORY This is my tenth and final message in this series on the history of redemption. What I would like to do this morning is to pull it all together and show how God's work in history comes to a climaxand ... read more
Confirm Your Election
May 2, 1982
2 Peter 1:5-11
CONFIRM YOUR ELECTION Last Sunday we saw in 2 Peter 1:1-4 that God's divine power has been given to all who have obtained faith in the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ; and that this divine power becomes ... read more
Delighting in the Law of God
Psalm 1
For some people the word "argument" only means "dispute" or "haggling" or "wrangling." But I want to use the word "argument" in its more positive sense of the giving of reasons and the drawing of inferences. I don't like haggling a ... read more
Destruction Is Not Sleeping
May 23, 1982
2 Peter 2:1-10
The main point of 2 Peter 1 which everything else supports or elaborates is verse 10: "Brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election; for if you do this you will never fall." Peter wants us to enjoy th ... read more
Discipline in the Christian College: Can It Be Redemptive?
A Message to Bethel College Counseling Staff
September 16, 1982
THE QUESTION
In order to understand the question, we must define at least two of the key terms more precisely. The term "discipline" may mean the rigorous training or instruction by wh ... read more
Do Not Labor for the Food Which Perishes
September 6, 1981
John 6:27
Labor Day has been a national holiday in America for 87 years. The purpose is to honor the working people of our land. In 1956 a commemorative Labor Day stamp was issued with a picture of a strong man holding a sledge ham ... read more
Don't Eat the Bread of Anxious Toil
Psalm 127
Wherever there are people whose hearts are not fretful or anxious or in a resentful frenzy, but instead have a tranquillity of heart and a kind of peaceful abandon in which they take thought for other's concerns instead of being all wound ... read more
Eagle Edom Will Come Down
November 7, 1982
Obadiah
Obadiah is the shortest Old Testament book (21 verses). We don't know anything about the author's background. There are eleven other people with this name in the Old Testament but there is no evidence for connecting this pro ... read more
Even the Hairs of My Head Are All Numbered
Reflections on My First Year in the Pastorate
July 12, 1981
Matthew 10:24-33
On this Sunday one year ago I preached my first sermon as pastor of Bethlehem. And now looking back on one year in the pastorate I feel two main emotions: 1) a sense of we ... read more
Exodus for All the Earth
November 8, 1981
"God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:27,28). The reas ... read more
Fear Not, You Worm Jacob!
August 22, 1982
Isaiah 41:14
"Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I will help you, says the Lord; your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel."
The main point of this text is that the people of God should not be a fearful people. We should n ... read more
Final Judgment
Romans 1:28-2:11
The Biblical truth that I want us to understand, believe and live by today is this: a time is coming when every responsible person, on the basis of his or her actions and attitudes, will meet the final judgment of God either as etern ... read more
Flesh Tank and Peashooter Regulations
January 17, 1982
Colossians 2:16-23
This coming Thursday evening, at the second half of our annual business meeting, we will be voting on the proposed amendment to the Church Covenant. I want to try to clarify this morning what is at stake in this d ... read more
For Our People and for the Cities of Our God
February 1, 1981
2 Samuel 10:11-12
I want to paint a word picture this morning of a relationship in ministry for John Piper and Glenn Ogren as they try to give pastoral leadership to the people of God who are Bethlehem Baptist Church. It is a pictur ... read more
Get Wisdom
May 24, 1981
Proverbs 4:1-13
I believe all men have this in common: that they want to be happy. They do not all agree on what brings the greatest happiness, but they do all long to have it. And this longing is not bad. It is good. Evil consists in t ... read more
God Meant It for Good
The Lives of Joseph and John the Baptist
November 8, 1981
The Lives of Joseph and John the Baptist
Except for Saturdays our family sits down for breakfast at about 7:15 a.m. After our cereal and juice we open the Bible and I read the morning Scriptur ... read more
God Works for Those Who Wait for Him
September 5, 1982
Isaiah 64:1-4
One of the rare delights of this summer was that my 2½ year old Abraham became a preacher. One morning I came up from downstairs and awakened the family with Psalm 20:7, "Some boast of chariots and some of horses; bu ... read more
Grace, Gratitude, and the Glory of God
Thanksgiving Day
November 26, 1981
2 Corinthians 4:15
It is all for your sake so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.
The subject that the apostle Paul is dealing with in this chapter is h ... read more
Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord
June 20, 1982
2 Peter 3:15-18
The final section of 2 Peter to look at is 3:15-18. Let me sum up the main points that I see and then look at them one at a time. First from verse 15, we should regard the time in which we live as a time of salvation. S ... read more
He Commanded and They Were Created
October 4, 1981
Psalm 148:5
HE COMMANDED AND THEY WERE CREATED We begin today a series of ten messages which, God willing, will carry us from the creation of the world through the history of God's dealings with Israel to the incarnation of God' s ... read more
He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem
April 4, 1982
Luke 9:51-56
Luke describes the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem at the beginning of that last week of his earthly life:
As he was drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoi ... read more
He Will Send His Angel Before You
August 8, 1982
Genesis 24:1-9
Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Therefore, everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord aims daily to know and do the will of God. If we do not make it our aim to do the will of God he ... read more
How Much Is Jesus Worth?
January 10, 1982
1 Peter 2:7
There are two truths I want to unfold and undergird from Scripture and from experience. The first is this: "To you who believe Jesus Christ is precious" (1 Peter 2:7). The second is this: Your power to give a compassio ... read more
How Not to Be a Mule
Psalm 32
The Psalm we want to ponder tonight is Psalm 32, and what we want to find out from it is "How not to be a mule."
How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered!
How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not ... read more
How Not to Talk to an Angel
Luke 1:5-25
Last time we studied Luke 1:1-4, the preface to Luke's two volume work: the Gospel and Acts. The main point of the preface (we saw in verse 4) was to state Luke's aim in writing, namely to persuade Theophilus that the Christian teaching ... read more
How to Argue with God
Psalm 143
Back in the spring I read a sermon that Charles Spurgeon preached in London about a century ago. The text he used in that sermon was Job 23:3,4 where Job says of God, "O that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to his sea ... read more
How to Do Good So God Gets the Glory
In the year AD 42 Herod, king in Judea, killed the apostle James with a sword. When he saw it pleased the Jews, he threw Peter, another apostle, in prison. The night before Herod was about to dispose of him an angel of the Lord woke Peter and led him out ... read more
How to Give Away a GIFT
This morning the Word of God instructed us always to be ready to make a case for our hope. And the exciting discovery for me in that text in 1 Peter 3:14,15 was that the way to get ready was to get hopeful . The best way to be ready to give others reasons ... read more
I Chose You to Bear Fruit
October 11, 1981
John 15:16
"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit" (John 15:16).
On the day after the night in which Jesus spoke these words to the eleven and to you, Glen, he laid himself dow ... read more
I Have Kept the Faith
2 Timothy 4:6-8
For me, the end of a year is like the end of my life. And 11:59 P.M. Wednesday night will be like the moment of my death. The 365 days of 1980 are like a miniature lifetime. And these final days are like the last hours in the hospital ... read more
I Seek Not What Is Yours but You
A Sermon on Tithing
January 24, 1982
2 Corinthians 12:15
Several weeks ago I spent four days at Shalom House, our Conference retreat center. The text that filled me with most longing and soaked through my prayers was 2 Cor. 12:15, "I will most gla ... read more
I Will Magnify God with Thanksgiving
Psalm 69:30-32
I Will Magnify God with Thanksgiving
I will praise the name of God with a song
I will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
This will please the Lord more than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.
Let the oppressed see it and be glad;
Yo ... read more
I Will Raise Up for David a Righteous Branch
December 13, 1981
"I WILL RAISE UP FOR DAVID A RIGHTEOUS BRANCH" In 1051 B.C., Saul was made the first king of Israel. About forty years later, David, the youngest son of Jesse (1 Sam. 16:11), began to rule. David was "a man after God's own heart" ... read more
In the Pits with a King
Psalm 40:1-3
One of the great benefits of reading the Psalms is that they present us with patterns of life that the godly go through in every age. And in doing that they encourage us that we are made of the same stuff as the saints of old and they gi ... read more
Is God for Us or for Himself?
Years ago I went to the Billy Graham crusade in Anaheim, California. There were about 50,000 people there that night, I think, and I sat in the left field bleachers and could see the whole massive crowd wrapping around the infield. When we sang "How Grea ... read more
Is There Good Anxiety?
April 21, 1981
2 Corinthians 11:28
IS THERE GOOD ANXIETY? In retrospect I think I can see that one of the deeper reasons why I left Bethel College to enter the pastorate is that the things that concern me most are states of the heart rather than sta ... read more
It's My Pleasure!
Those who know me best know that I am a Christian Hedonist. That means that I think my desire to be happy is a proper motive for everything I do. I do what I do because I think it will make me happier in the long run. In fact, I think that if I abandon th ... read more
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