How desperately do you crave people liking you?

It's okay to want to be liked.

I mean, nobody likes to be disliked.

I'm talking about a craving, a needing, a control on your life.

I've got to be liked. I got to be approved, I got to be

praised, I need, I need, I need, and it's an addiction. It's a controlling bondage on our lives

to need more praise, more statistics in our favor, more kind words, less criticism, more,

more, more, more, more, and it never satisfies.

What keeps us addicted to human approval?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens John 5 versus 30 to 47 to expose the restless craving for praise that enslaves us and reveal how Christ sets us free.

The sermon was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 20th, 2009.

Let's go to the bottom.

And it is in verse 40.

The reason Jesus said to Nicodemus, right off the bat,

Nicodemus is one of these people, right?

He's one of those humans who said, what?

Got to enter into your mother's tummy a second time and be born? This is total blindness.

And Jesus says, the wind blows where it wills. You don't know where it comes from or where it's going. So are everyone who are born in the spirit. We must be born again. That's what I'm praying. We pray

downstairs. God, breathe on this room. Because I can't save anybody. You can't save anybody,

including yourself, but the Holy Spirit can sever the root of this controlling desire

so that suddenly you're free to be rational and free to see and follow.

Now, verse 44 is the bottom. And verse 43 shows how it works.

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