God Takes Away to Display Christ’s Beauty

Ask Pastor John

Desiring God

John Piper, Unknown, 163859, Pastor, Ask, Theology, Desiring God, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Questions

4.8 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2015

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Lord takes away not so that we experience loss, but so that we know the fullness of hope and joy only Jesus Christ offers.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
0:09.1	And it's his active role in the taking away that we often fail to reflect on.
0:14.1	The Lord takes away by his own initiative.
0:16.5	It's his wisdom, his act of sovereignty in our lives when we feel the sting of personal
0:21.3	loss.
0:22.8	But why?
0:23.8	Why does God take things from us?
0:26.0	This was the question taken up by John Piper in a recent sermon.
0:29.8	And here's one precious answer.
0:32.3	The reason this world of calamity, conflict, misery, suffering, and death exist is so that
0:40.8	the followers of Jesus Christ would be able to experience and display the profound God-honoring
0:52.2	truth that Christ is more precious to us than everything we could lose in this world.
0:59.8	A world of loss exists so that you and I, by not murmuring or complaining or getting
1:13.3	angry at God, but rather resting in Him and trusting in Him, could show the world and
1:20.7	testify to our own consciences that God is more precious to us than everything that we
1:26.4	just lost.
1:27.6	That's why the loss exists.
1:29.6	I'll read the verse from which I get that.
1:33.0	This is Philippians chapter 3, verse 8.
1:36.7	I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
1:45.4	For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse in order
1:51.2	that I may gain Christ.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Desiring God, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Desiring God and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.