Sin Prefers Anything to God
00:00:00.000 | At root, what is sin?
00:00:08.400 | This was the question John Piper sought to answer in his message, "What is Sin?
00:00:12.560 | The Essence and Root of All Sinning" at our 2015 Pastors Conference.
00:00:17.640 | Here's a clip of what John Piper said.
00:00:20.280 | So my definition of sinning goes like this.
00:00:23.960 | Sinning is any feeling or thought or speech or action that comes from a heart that does
00:00:31.360 | not treasure God over all things.
00:00:36.240 | Sinning, sins, actions called sins are any thought, feeling, speech, action that come
00:00:49.400 | like fruit or branch, shoot out of the root of the heart that prefers anything to God.
00:00:59.520 | A few years ago I attempted to define sin, therefore, like this.
00:01:07.960 | And this is the root, not the branch.
00:01:10.880 | Sin is the glory of God, not honored.
00:01:13.760 | The holiness of God, not reverenced.
00:01:17.320 | The greatness of God, not admired.
00:01:20.920 | The power of God, not praised.
00:01:23.680 | The truth of God, not sought.
00:01:26.440 | The wisdom of God, not esteemed.
00:01:29.240 | The beauty of God, not treasured.
00:01:31.880 | The goodness of God, not savored.
00:01:35.000 | The faithfulness of God, not trusted.
00:01:38.100 | The promises of God, not believed.
00:01:41.160 | The commandments of God, not obeyed.
00:01:43.780 | The justice of God, not respected.
00:01:46.640 | The wrath of God, not feared.
00:01:49.160 | The grace of God, not cherished.
00:01:51.720 | The presence of God, not prized.
00:01:54.520 | The person of God, not loved.
00:01:57.480 | Why is it that people become so emotionally and morally indignant over poverty, exploitation,
00:02:07.720 | prejudice, abortion, infractions of our religious liberty, manifold injustices of man to man
00:02:16.620 | and feel little or no remorse or indignation or outrage that God is disregarded, disbelieved,
00:02:28.120 | disobeyed, dishonored, and thus belittled by millions and millions and millions of His
00:02:35.840 | creatures?
00:02:39.440 | This clip was taken from John Pepper's message, "What is Sin?
00:02:42.340 | The Essence and Root of All Sinning," from our 2015 Pastors Conference.
00:02:47.060 | You can find the full message on our site, along with 1,200 other messages like this
00:02:51.020 | one from John Piper.
00:02:52.900 | See our sermon archive at DesiringGod.org.
00:02:56.100 | On Wednesdays, we like to dip into the archive to pull out a classic clip for the podcast,
00:02:59.860 | and I welcome your suggestions.
00:03:01.460 | If you have a favorite clip from John Piper's sermons, old or new, email us the name of
00:03:05.740 | the sermon and, if possible, the timestamp of when and where the clip occurs in the audio.
00:03:10.140 | If we post your clip, we will give you credit, of course.
00:03:12.700 | Please put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:03:19.580 | Tomorrow we hear from a Bible counselor, Ed Welch, on battling anxiety.
00:03:24.660 | It's a common struggle, and he has a lot of wise counsel for those of us in the struggle.
00:03:28.860 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:03:30.300 | I'll see you tomorrow.
00:03:30.940 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:03:39.740 | [ Silence ]