(upbeat music) - Episode number 500, and who would have thought that we would make 500 of these? And there's a lot of work yet to be done, Pastor John, and the email questions are pouring in as fast as they ever have before. But as we near the end of our second year, and as Pastor John, and as 2014 closes, we wanna stop and look back, because there's so much to be grateful for.

There's been much grace poured out on Desiring God this year. Pastor John, when you think back over the ministry of DG, what happened in 2014, and what's to come in 2015, what excites you the most? - Well, here's a front burner thing, because it's always the personal that excites me most, not just the stats, although I love those too.

I just got a letter just the other day from a woman who told me that she was at one day in Tennessee in the year 2000, so that's 14 years ago, and, 15, I guess, resolved not to die collecting shells. She went with a team then to China to a people group that had not had a Christian witness, she said, since Hudson Taylor.

After a year with the team, she said the team was discouraged and depressed with unresponsiveness of the people, and someone suggested that the team watch the sermons on Romans 9 from Desiring God. Nine, not eight, not Romans 8, Romans 9. This is what surprised me in the letter, and she said that they did, and that they had never, she said we had never heard such a vision of God's absolute sovereignty, and then she said, to my wonderful amazement, it was exactly what they needed at the moment.

God strengthened their hands. Within the next year, a 74-year-old man was converted, and he became instrumental in making gospel recordings for the people group. So one of the things that makes me soar, whether it's year-end or any other time, with thankfulness, is the number of missionaries whose hands are strengthened in their work by Desiring God.

I love these warriors, and it is one of the greatest honors of my life to be any help I can be in their great cause. So that's the main and front burner thing for me, but it may be that some of our listeners really do like statistics, so it just might encourage them just about the scope of the reach of Desiring God, and so I'll give a few here to give a glimpse in who we are, what's happening.

In recent months, there have been about three million visits to the website each month, and about half, about 50% more than the same time a year ago. We don't know why this is really a remarkable season at Desiring God, and for me, one of the most amazing facts about those numbers are that 40%, I was told by Josh, one of our directors, have never been to Desiring God before, and I asked him, "How does that happen?" I mean, how did 40% of three million people a month find we even exist?

And one of the answers is, he said, "Nine million people in this past year have visited through Google searches. They have found us through Google searches," which means that somebody went to Google and they typed in something, Christian marriage, same-sex marriage and Christianity, Ebola and Jesus, physician-assisted suicide and God, or something like that, and lo and behold, these guys are so smart that in the top two, three, four, five, six responses on Google comes up a Desiring God article or sermon, and they click through, and this just blows me away because the mission statement of Desiring God is we exist to spread, spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things through the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ by highlighting the truth that God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in Him.

And so when people find their way to us who've never heard of us before, I am simply amazed and thrilled. This past year, the content team told me that we've produced about 1,000 new resources, including with you and me, about 260 new "Ask Pastor John" episodes, about 600 new articles.

We've got these two apps, "Ask Pastor John" app and the Solid Joys app, and I think there's been about 100,000 downloads of APJ and about 300,000 downloads of the Solid Joys so that people are just regularly tuning in with the app in that way. Besides working with you in this happy thing called "Ask Pastor John," this year has seen the emergence finally after two years of dreaming of "Look at the Book" as a study help, and so I'm immersed totally in preparing these unusual kinds of Bible study helps with "Look at the Book," and we started in October.

We're producing two a week now, and we plan to do that right on into the next year and see how God blesses that. What we're really about at Desiring God is serious biblical substance and content. We don't want just fluff, which means besides the significant articles that are produced, there are books.

I think the content team published five e-books through Desiring God, and then I think there were four new books in the traditional publishing way, "A Godward Heart" and six volume of the "Swan" series of biographies, the "Dawn of Indestructible Joy" advent book, and the collection on C.S. Lewis, "Romantic Rationalist." So I'm excited to have two extended writing seasons that Desiring God wants me to take next year in order to continue that production of books.

So God willing, I'll be able to at least make a good start, I hope finish a book on how we make the most of God's word. I don't have a title for that yet, but something about the heart engagement and the mind engagement with the Bible, and then probably another volume of the "Swan" series of biographies on Spurgeon and Hudson Taylor and George Mueller, 'cause they were all friends in London and they make a very interesting triumvirate.

And all of that output at Desiring God is for real people and comes from real people. There are two teams that make it happen, a content team, you're on that content team, and an amazing tech team. These guys behind the scenes who make everything possible. They're on a kind of two-week sprint interval to provide improvements and bug fixes all the time.

We are so about making this content accessible. We don't charge for it, we don't make people register for it. We say you can copy and paste anything you want, you can download anything you want, you can share anything you want. We're all about spreading, which means that it costs us about $3.8 million a year for this team and all this technology.

84% of which comes from donors who love what we do. And we love those donors who love what we do and make it possible. It's just incredible to me how much is available in God-centered truth for life-changing, Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting content that's out there. So I just wanted, Tony, to take the opportunity to say thank you to all those who have shared in this ministry and just say pray for us and may your 2015 be your best year yet.

Amen, thank you, Pastor John. I'm so honored to be a part of this team and to be working on this podcast. And thank you listeners for making this podcast a part of your life. All the facets of the ministry of Desiring God, which include initiatives like this daily podcast, Ask Pastor John, and Look at the Book, and our line of eBooks, and our devotional app, Solid Joys, and the daily content that we publish at the blog, it's all made possible by the prayers and financial generosity of many friends of the ministry who love what we do.

So as we near the end of 2014, we wanna take a moment to thank everyone who supports our work because behind the incredible growth of web traffic stats that we're seeing at desiringgod.org is a lot of labor. And behind that labor are the financial contributions from listeners like you.

And if you'd like to become a partner with us in this work, you can do so online right now. Go to desiringgod.org, click on the Donate tab at the top of the page. Your financial support is greatly appreciated by us. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and tomorrow we return, and I ask Pastor John, of all of his books, what are the best Piper books for the beginning reader?

We'll see you tomorrow. (silence) (silence) (silence)