Let the Nations Be Glad! Quotes

“Humility is the flip side of giving God all the glory. Humility means reveling in his grace, not our goodness.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
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― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!

“Thus, when Paul says, "Praise the Lord all you nations, and let all the peoples extol him" (Rom. 15:11), he is saying that there is something about God that is so universally praiseworthy and so profoundly beautiful and so comprehensively worth and so deeply satisfying that God will find passionate admirers in every diverse people group in the world. His true greatness will be manifest in the breadth of the diversity of those who perceive and cherish his beauty. His excellence will be shown to be higher and deeper than the parochial preferences that make us happy most of the time. His appeal will be to the deepest, highest, largest capacities of the human soul. Thus, the diversity of the source of admiration will testify to his incomparable glory.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The charge of blasphemy is loaded. The point is to pack a wallop behind the charge that in our worship services God simply doesn't come through for who he is. He is unwittingly belittled. For those who are stunned by the indescribable magnitude of what God has made, not to mention the infinite greatness of the One who made it, the steady diet on Sunday morning of practical how-to's and psychological soothing and relational therapy and tactical planning seem dramatically out of touch with Reality - the God of overwhelming greatness.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“We cannot know what prayer is for until we know that life is war.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!

“Love is helping people toward the greatest beauty, the highest value, the deepest satisfaction, the most lasting joy, the biggest reward, the most wonderful friendship, and the most overwhelming worship—love is helping people toward God.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The point is that an $80,000 or a $180,000 salary does not have to be accompanied by an $80,000 or a $180,000 lifestyle. God is calling us to be conduits of his grace, not cul-de-sacs. Our great danger today is thinking that the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn’t. Copper will do. No matter how grateful we are, gold will not make the world think that our God is good; it will make people think that our god is gold. That is no honor to the supremacy of his worth.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“My biggest concern about the effects of the prosperity movement is that it diminishes Christ by making him less central and less satisfying than his gifts.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“Jesus warns that the word of God, the gospel, which is meant to give us life, can be choked to death by riches.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love “the lost.” You can’t feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as “all lost people.” Don’t wait for a feeling of love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of a compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God. The Bible says in Ephesians 6:7–8: “With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.” Humanity does not deserve the love of God any more than you or I do. We should never be Christian humanists, taking Jesus to poor sinful people, reducing Jesus to some kind of product that will better their lot. People deserve to be damned, but Jesus, the suffering Lamb of God, deserves the reward of His suffering.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The word for “fight” in 1 Timothy, agonizesthai, is used repeatedly in describing the Christian life. Jesus said, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Paul compares the Christian life to a race and says, “Every athlete strives and uses self-control in all things. They do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we do it to obtain an imperishable one” (1 Cor. 9:25, author’s translation). He describes his ministry of proclamation and teaching in these terms: “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Col. 1:29). And he says that prayer is part of this fight: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers” (Col. 4:12). “Strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf” (Rom. 15:30). It’s the same word each time: the word for “fight.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“As missões não são o alvo fundamental da igreja. A adoração é. As missões existem porque não há adoração. A adoração é fundamental, não as missões, porque Deus é essencial, não o homem. Quando esta era se encerrar e os incontáveis milhões de redimidos estiverem perante o trono de Deus, não haverá mais missões. Elas são uma necessidade temporária. A adoração, porém, permanece para sempre.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“If you love the glory of God, you cannot be indifferent to missions.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The highest of missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission (important as that is), nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing (strong as that incentive is, especially when we contemplate the wrath of God . . .), but rather zeal—burning and passionate zeal—for the glory of Jesus Christ. . . . Only one imperialism is Christian . . . and that is concern for His Imperial Majesty Jesus Christ, and for the glory of his empire.2”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The extent of our sacrifice coupled with the depth of our joy displays the worth we put on the reward of God.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The goal of our mission is that people from all the nations worship the true God. But worship means cherishing the preciousness of God above all else, including life itself.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“Jesus’ primary concern—the very first petition of the prayer he teaches—is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God’s name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exists because this hallowing does not.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“But when we commend Christ as the one who satisfies our soul forever—even when there is no health, wealth, and prosperity—then Christ is magnified as more precious than all those gifts.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“The highest of missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission (important as that is), nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing (strong as that incentive is, especially when we contemplate the wrath of God . . .), but rather zeal—burning and passionate zeal—for the glory of Jesus Christ. . . . Only one imperialism is Christian . . . and that is concern for His Imperial Majesty Jesus Christ, and for the glory of his empire.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions

“This was Andrew Murray’s judgment a hundred years ago: As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only answer is—lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing. And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King.18”
― John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions