What is the greatest problem in the universe? And what is the greatest problem in my heart? And what is the solution to these problems? John Piper explained in a 2015 sermon, but first he explained why the universe exists and why you and I exist. Here's what he said. So the meaning of human life, the meaning of existence, the meaning of the universe is at its core all things to be used to show how magnificent God is.

This universe is about God. You know, sometimes I've heard skeptics or atheists shake their heads at the notion that Christians could believe that on this infinitesimal planet where there is a self-conscious being called man could believe that God created the universe about that. Because as far as we know it's just so vast and empty.

And I say, you've got it totally upside down. It's not about that. That is to show this little infinitesimal people something little about God. The universe is to display God to that little planet. It's not about that little planet. It's about God. And the universe is God's best effort to say that's how big I am.

That's how strong I am. That's how glorious and magnificent. The galaxies are all about God, not man. There's nothing unusual about it at all. The disproportion between the universe in all of its vast glory and infinitesimal little man is perfectly rational if you're God-centered. If God is all, if God is the reality in the universe, and man is his little amazing worshiping group.

So we've learned that that's why we exist and therefore money, sex, and power are in the world for us to use in order to make God look great. Then we discovered another foundational reality, namely that we have all exchanged the glory of God everywhere we've looked. We have seen it.

We have known it in some deep sense and we've suppressed it. And we have preferred other things to God. And that's the arch heresy and the greatest outrage of the universe, that people prefer other things to God. They exchange. They see God. They trade God. They embrace their death, call it their glory.

And that's the tragedy and the outrage of history. The image we used at the end of the last hour was that all of the parts of our lives, and sex, money, and power are three of them. You could add many more like family or work, are like planets in a solar system.

And they are designed to be held by the massive beauty and blazing gravitational pull of a sovereign and all-satisfying God at the center of our lives. And when He's there and He is all to us and all-satisfying to us, then the planets are moving perfectly in their beautiful, God-glorifying, soul-satisfying orbit.

Sex, power, money, all circling the sun just the way they were designed. And nobody has God at the center like that until they are born of God. So the whole universe is out of order because we replaced the sun with little moons and little asteroids and little crazy things at the center of the solar system of our lives.

And the planets are flying all out of order. We're murdering each other and killing each other and destroying each other's sexual lives and manipulating and controlling and exploiting each other with money and power. And people wonder, "What's wrong?" I say, "Well, where is God?" "Well, that doesn't have anything to do with it." "It has everything to do with it.

He is everything. And if you treat Him like He's nothing, don't expect anything to work because He didn't make it that way. He made the universe and our souls for Him to be at the blazing center." Amen. This is a little window into everything we do at Desiring God.

By the way, this message excerpt was taken from a message given last summer in a series titled "Living in the Light with Money, Sex, and Power." A four-part series, three messages, a Q&A, and all available at DesiringGod.org. The messages were edited, expanded, and became the new book, "Living in the Light, Money, Sex, and Power." A nice little hardcover available now on Amazon and downloadable free of charge at DesiringGod.org/books.

Well, John Piper has been studying the Book of Romans for decades, and this little sermon clip is just one little glimpse into the fruit of those lifelong labors. Tomorrow, I'm going to ask John Piper to give me a list of his five favorite books on the Book of Romans.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. . .