All Good Without God Is Evil (Four-Minute Clip on Sin) | Desiring God http://www.desiringgod.org/all-good-without-god-is-evil?utm_medium=e...

MA RCH 13, 2 0 17

All Good Without God IsEvil

Four-Minute Clip onSin
John Piper Topic: Sin

Audio Transcript

There is enormous pressure on you today to think of the good good, opposite of evil to think of
good in ways that have nothing to do with God. Just think now: Okay I call that good, I call that good, I
call that good, and God is never even in your mind when you say it. And so does the world. So you can strip
God out, strip the Son of God out, strip a heart out that is dependent on God and delighting in God just
strip all that out and still have good.

This is what Paul said in Romans 14:23: Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Thats devastating,
for everybody in the world. Whatever action, whatever attitude does not proceed from faith is sin. Heres
the way Hebrews 11:6 puts it: Without faith it is impossible to please him [God].

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All Good Without God Is Evil (Four-Minute Clip on Sin) | Desiring God http://www.desiringgod.org/all-good-without-god-is-evil?utm_medium=e...

So on this last point, Im asking, Okay, whats the glory of the Christian life? And Paul and the writer to
the Hebrews are saying your life is just sin and your life is just displeasing to God unless theres faith; that
is, unless theres an embracing of God as supremely valuable.

Dont reduce faith to affirmations of sentences that Satan himself knows are true. Faith is the reception and
the embrace of all that God is for us in Jesus, with a restful contentment and joy. And Paul says, and
Hebrews says, where that is not happening, life is evil. Sin. Thats as radical as you can get.

Most of you probably dont believe that. Without faith, you cannot please God. What was the ultimate
essence of the Pharisees sin? They devoured widows houses, they despised sinners, they distorted the law,
they exploited the poor, they felt no mercy, they neglected justice, they murdered Gods son. Is that the
essence of their evil? No.

The essence of their evil is that they loved money. It says so in Luke 16:14. And they loved the praise of man.
And out of that cesspool of preferring the praise of man and what money can buy, preferring all that to the
God of grace, everything evil came out of their lives which we hate. But now, will you go down in your
heart? Will you get at the root of what the ultimate essence of your evil is?

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