These people had possessions and they held them so loosely and they were so little attached

to their hearts that when the possession was snatched away from them, violence snatched

away from them, there was no big rip.

There was no big tear.

So what is it that enables us as Christians to be joyful in loss?

John Piper turns to Hebrews 10, 32 to 36 to explore the source of our unwavering joy

in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on May 9, 1993.

The Christian Church in America suffers from about 350 years of dominance and prosperity.

What I mean by dominance is that we're almost all of this country's history from the Puritans

on.

The Christian ethos has been the dominant one and to be a Christian is to be a person

who's accepted and viewed as normal and even one who has some traits that are beneficial

to the country.

What I mean by prosperity is that being a Christian and fitting in to that ethos has for a long

time resulted in things going well for us and so to be a Christian has been a plus.

The problem is that we have gotten things so out of proportion that we can't really

even imagine what the New Testament church was like, I think.

We have taken things that are little peripheral spin-offs of the faith as no big deal in eternity.

Believe me.

So those simple spin-offs out here at the edge of Christianity and we've made them the

cherished treasure of the middle and we've elevated them to the point where, well if things

...