Look at Christ and what do you see in Him? The answer to that question determines everything, as Pastor John explained why in his message at Passion to 20,000 students in Atlanta on January 3rd, 2015. Here's what he said. My guess is that for many of you, this language is not the way you grew up talking about the gospel.

I don't know that you are familiar with anyone saying "When Christ died for me, the best thing he purchased for me is the greatest gift of the love of God, namely God's gift of the beauty of God to satisfy my soul forever." I don't know how many of you ever talked that way, or when you got saved think "That's what happened." So here's why I'm preaching on this.

I want you, true Christian, to know that happened to you and you've experienced that. Nobody may have ever taught you the language to use to define what God really did in your life, and then there's others of you who've been playing this game called religion because it's a cool group on your campus and you've never seen it.

I'm talking a foreign language to you right now. I don't even know what you mean by the beauty of God. I want you to see. So I've got three answers to this last question. What difference will it make in your life? Here's number one. If you believe, which passion does and I do, that the greatest good of the gospel is the gift of the beauty of God for your everlasting enjoyment.

If you believe that, implication number one is your saving faith is not at root a decision about Christ's truth but a sight of Christ's glory. Say it again. First implication is at root -- this is important -- at root your faith, your saving faith is not a decision about the truth of Christ.

At root it is a seeing of the beauty of Christ, the all-satisfying, all- compelling beauty of Christ. When you are confronted with infinite, all-satisfying beauty, the question is not "So what's your decision?" The question is "What do you see?" Do you see Christ in the gospel as beautiful? More beautiful, more glorious, more satisfying than anything else?

That's the question. That is the root question. When you are presented with infinite beauty, all-satisfying beauty, the question is not "So what's your decision?" Picture yourself in an art class and the teacher holds up a beautiful painting and you look at it and find it boring and the teacher says to you "So?" Make up your mind.

Decide. Is it beautiful or is it boring? Your proper response to the teacher is "It doesn't work like that. You show me a painting, I think it's boring, and you're telling me decide. Decide. It's not what you do when you see something. You don't decide. You just either see it as boring or you see it as beautiful.

You don't decide. Just see it as beautiful. If you tell me I'm supposed to write on the test, it's beautiful, I can do that, but there's a name for that. It's called lying or hypocrisy." You can't decide yourself into seeing as beautiful what you think is boring. It doesn't work like that.

You would be right to respond to her that way or him. Deciding isn't what gets you there. I was 18 once. You know how long ago that was? 50 years. And I sang a song. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. No turning back. I sang that. I loved that. I meant that. And I'm singing it now and meaning it. It's a good song. However, I have learned something. Beneath and before I could ever decide to lay my life down in the discipleship of Jesus Christ, I had to see Him.

Otherwise, I'm playing with Him. Does somebody get an arm on my back? It might be called hell. Might be called approval of parents. They're just making me do this, but I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen anything beautiful. I haven't seen anything infinitely worthy of my affections. But I had seen.

I had. So when I sang it, I meant it. Beautiful. That clip was taken from John Piper's conference message titled "Why do Christians preach and sing at Passion in Atlanta?" to 20,000 students on January 3rd, 2015. The full message, both audio and video, can be found at DesiringGod.org. And if you have a favorite clip from a John Piper sermon, old or new, email us the name of the sermon and a timestamp of when and where the clip occurs in the audio.

And if we post your clip online, we will give you credit, of course. Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. Tomorrow, a podcast listener wants to know if John Piper had a chance to meet Jonathan Edwards, what questions would he ask him?

I'm your host Tony Reinke. I'll see you tomorrow.