ENGAGING CULTURE

My introduction to Dr. John Piper was in college, through a free cassette tape of one of his sermons which I picked up at a church in Dothan, Alabama while doing some drama for a JAM team there. My car at the time had no CD player and if you’ve ever tried to listen to the radio in lower Alabama, don’t bother there’s nothing on. So Piper had a captive audience. And in my first 10 times listening to this sermon I thought he was a nut. I thought I had picked up the tape of some heretic and was now polluting my brain with it. But I kept listening and I kept studying for myself and found that he wasn’t crazy, he was right! I had never heard the gospel taught in the passionate and life changing way that he did.

In the aforementioned sermon, “Let Your Passion Be Single,” John Piper tells his audience that if they want to buy a Piper book they only need to get one because he says the same thing in every book. And in a sense this is true, but he continues to elaborate upon, re-hash, and apply that same thing in every one of his books. That is what keeps fans of Piper’s books coming back for more. But it just so happens that tomorrow and Thursday, Desiring God is offering all of Dr. Piper’s books for $5 each. This would be a great time to totally go against Dr. Piper’s previously mentioned advice and stock up on some of the old favorites and some of his newer material that if you’re like me you haven’t gotten a chance to read, YET.

On top of that, Abraham Piper at the Desiring God Blog has asked all Piper loving Bloggers to post some of their favorites or recommendations so I figure this is the least I can do to show my appreciation for sharing all of Dr. Piper’s sermons and conferences from the past 20 years and many of his books for FREE so that everyone can benefit from them.

Before I give my top five (which will probably become a top ten), let me tell you why this is so hard. It is extremely hard to choose which of these wonderful books has impacted me the most. It was through the sermon which I mentioned above that I came to a full realization of how great the Gospel really is. I was saved, but not in a way that gave the greatest glory to God. I knew that saving faith was not just belief in the right systematic theology. Real faith is life altering. I never had real faith until I anchored myself to Jesus Christ and put my hopes in nothing but him. I knew that, but I never expected it to be a joy. To the contrary, I almost expected it to be a life of stoic acceptance and joyless servitude. How wrong was I? I am now freed to be happy in God, because there is no conflict between God’s glory and my happiness because the greatest joy I will ever attain is found in the person of Jesus Christ. Or has Piper has so eloquently stated it for all these years, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” So I pray that this $5 sale might draw hundreds of joyless Christians to come to that same understanding.

10. Brothers We Are Not Professionals - For pastors, as a plea to eschew the corporate mindset and reach for a biblical view of ministry which puts it trust in God, and not in our talents and abilities.

9. The Supremacy of God in Preaching - If it is ever your privilege to stand before the people of God to teach the word of God do yourself the favor of reading this book. It gives me so much peace now to realize that the results are not up to me and my preaching ability but up to God who saves.

8. Let The Nations Be Glad - Missions is not the goal of the Church, worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.

7. Dangerous Duty of Delight - A synopsis of #1 great gift to give to lost family members and friends, challenge them to read it. Short enough for even the laziest people you know. If they could read “Prayer of Jabez” they can definitely read this and get much more from it.

6. Don’t Waste Your Life - This is the message I continually preach over and over again to youth. Forget the material goals and dreams, life is so short don’t waste it on things that aren’t eternal.

5. God is the Gospel - The good news isn’t belief in some facts or truths, it is falling into the all-sufficient arms of God with trust, knowing that he is the rewarder of those who come to him.

4. Sex and the Supremacy of Christ - Wow. Ouch. Sexual love is the greatest human example of the pleasure that God desires for us to have, in HIM. Sex, like all things, was created that we might know, love, and enjoy God more fully.

3. The Pleasures of God - God is not an idolater. Not a light read by any means. Find that God is the most God centered person in the universe. And the goal of what he has done, is doing, and will do is to bring glory to his name.

2. (The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in) Future Grace - Faith doesn’t stand looking backwards in time, it looks to the future secured in the knowledge that God has abundantly more Grace to give to us.

1. Desiring God - The Manifesto. Discover what it means to be a Christian Hedonist. How you can really have your best life now. I’ll give you a hint, Joel Osteen missed it by a mile.

Do you have other favorites I missed?