The 14 years or so that I've been part of passion and it's been part of passion

and it's been an enormous privilege as you can imagine. I have several

times asked a question over the years. I don't remember how many, three or four times, maybe as part of what I try to make

plain here. Let me give you the question and then tell you what we're going to do with it. The question is, do you feel more loved by God

when he makes much of you, or do you feel more loved by God when he frees you and enables you at

great cost to his son's life to enjoy making much of him forever.

Let me shorten it down so you can hear the essence of it.

Do you feel more loved by God

because he makes much of you or because he enables you to make much of him.

So I've asked that question numerous times here and around the country.

And what I have realized is that it has to clear up now. So this message is

that I want to clear up now.

So this message is designed to bring clarity and precision to that question and what I mean by it, why I use it and what it doesn't mean,

that's where we're going. Let me say it again.

Do you feel more loved by God because he makes much of you or because he

because he, through Christ, enables you to enjoy making much of him forever.

I think I've misled. For example, I think some people respond and say so Piper really doesn't believe that God makes much of us.

Or if he does, he doesn't think we should be happy about it.

Or joyful in it, because if we are happy that God makes much of us then that

contaminates our happiness in making much of him. That's what Piper thinks. That's not what I think.

I don't want to mislead you. I don't want you to be left with

unbiblical or disproportionate thoughts about these things. I want clarity. I want to be

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