At root, what is sin? This was the question John Piper sought to answer in his message, "What is Sin? The Essence and Root of All Sinning" at our 2015 Pastors Conference. Here's a clip of what John Piper said. So my definition of sinning goes like this. Sinning is any feeling or thought or speech or action that comes from a heart that does not treasure God over all things.

Sinning, sins, actions called sins are any thought, feeling, speech, action that come like fruit or branch, shoot out of the root of the heart that prefers anything to God. A few years ago I attempted to define sin, therefore, like this. And this is the root, not the branch. Sin is the glory of God, not honored.

The holiness of God, not reverenced. The greatness of God, not admired. The power of God, not praised. The truth of God, not sought. The wisdom of God, not esteemed. The beauty of God, not treasured. The goodness of God, not savored. The faithfulness of God, not trusted. The promises of God, not believed.

The commandments of God, not obeyed. The justice of God, not respected. The wrath of God, not feared. The grace of God, not cherished. The presence of God, not prized. The person of God, not loved. Why is it that people become so emotionally and morally indignant over poverty, exploitation, prejudice, abortion, infractions of our religious liberty, manifold injustices of man to man and feel little or no remorse or indignation or outrage that God is disregarded, disbelieved, disobeyed, dishonored, and thus belittled by millions and millions and millions of His creatures?

This clip was taken from John Pepper's message, "What is Sin? The Essence and Root of All Sinning," from our 2015 Pastors Conference. You can find the full message on our site, along with 1,200 other messages like this one from John Piper. See our sermon archive at DesiringGod.org. On Wednesdays, we like to dip into the archive to pull out a classic clip for the podcast, and I welcome your suggestions.

If you have a favorite clip from John Piper's sermons, old or new, email us the name of the sermon and, if possible, the timestamp of when and where the clip occurs in the audio. If we post your clip, we will give you credit, of course. Please put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

Tomorrow we hear from a Bible counselor, Ed Welch, on battling anxiety. It's a common struggle, and he has a lot of wise counsel for those of us in the struggle. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. I'll see you tomorrow.