Talk

Why Do Christians Preach and Sing?

John Piper
January, 3, 2015

John Piper walks through three big ideas—that faith is seeing God as beautiful, lostness is blindness to His beauty, and conversion is not merely your decision to follow Him but Him giving you the gift of sight. When we see the beauty of God, we acknowledge that His glory is all-compelling, all-surpassing, and all-satisfying, and we can’t help but follow Him and become agents of the miracle.

Scripture References

9You who bring good news to Zion,

go up on a high mountain.

You who bring good news to Jerusalem,

lift up your voice with a shout,

lift it up, do not be afraid;

say to the towns of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

7How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace,

who bring good tidings,

who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,

“Your God reigns!”

10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
4The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
5For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
John Piper
John Piper
John Piper is the founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. He is the author of more than fifty books, and more than thirty years of his preaching and writing are available free of charge at desiringGod.org. John and his wife, Noël, have five children and 12 grandchildren.