No Help Wanted: God’s Call to Radical Dependence

Light + Truth

Desiring God

Religion & Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can we ever repay God for his grace? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens 1 Peter 4:11 to show why every step of obedience deepens our joyful dependence on God.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Every step you take in the next five seconds worth of future is taken in the power of grace.
0:11.0	The next one is in the power of grace.
0:12.8	The next one is in the power of grace.
0:14.3	And you are going down, down, down, down into glorious dependence upon more and more grace.
0:21.6	And your debt is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger to the glory of God's grace every second of your life.
0:28.6	So get out of your mind forever the payback mentality to God.
0:32.6	It's impossible.
0:34.6	Do you ever feel like you need to pay God back for all that he's done for you?
0:42.3	I'm Dan Kroover.
0:43.3	In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper reminds us from 1st Peter 4 that the Christian
0:50.3	life isn't about repayment.
0:52.3	It's about deepening dependence. Every step forward is
0:57.5	always powered by grace. This message was originally delivered at Wheaton's Reformation 99 on October 29th,
1:07.8	1999.
1:18.1	We have, this room is filled with servants of the Lord, and I'm, I want to tell you not to be a servant tonight.
1:20.5	And I'm basing it on Acts 17, 25.
1:24.3	God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything
1:29.0	for he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything
1:32.0	therefore
1:34.0	beware of serving God
1:36.6	beware of serving God
1:40.2	you can dishonor God by serving God
	...

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