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Title:  Part 1 The Essence of the Unwasted Life, Part 2 The Origin of the Unwasted Life, Part 3a The Appearance of the Unwasted Life, Part 3b The Appearance of the Unwasted Life [MP3]
Speaker:  John Piper
Source:  Desiring God Resource Library
Description:  From the Don't Waste Your Life Regional Conference Spring 2008. A phenomenal set of messages on the unwasted life! Piper answers the questions: "What is the ultimate aim of the life that truly counts?", "What must happen for such a life to be lived?", and "What does this life look like?"
Other Media:  Transcript Part 1, Part 2, Part 3a, Part 3b (website)

Labels: audio, christian hedonism, faith, favorites, foreign missions, God's will, idolatry, sovereignty, suffering and sacrifice, the unwasted life

Title:  Oh, That I May Never Loiter on My Heavenly Journey! (Reflections on the Life and Ministry of David Brainerd) [MP3]
Speaker:  John Piper
Source:  Desiring God Resource Library (Biographies)
Description:  Despite his almost constant, debilitating pain and depression, David Brainerd persevered to take the Gospel of Jesus to the unreached Indians of the early American frontier. Brainerd only lived 29 years. But (owing mostly to his biography by Jonathan Edwards) his life has been used to incalculable effect for the Kingdom of God. He didn't waste his life.
"The list of missionaries who testify to the inspiration of Brainerd’s Life through the work of Jonathan Edwards is longer than any of us knows: Francis Asbury, Thomas Coke, William Carey, Henry Martyn, Robert Morrison, Samuel Mills, Fredrick Schwartz, Robert M’Cheyne, David Livingstone, Andrew Murray. And a few days before he died, Jim Elliot, who was martyred by the Aucas, entered in his diary, 'Confession of pride—suggested by David Brainerd’s Diary yesterday—must become an hourly thing with me.'"
"There are a few Indians—perhaps several hundreds—who owe their everlasting life to the direct love and ministry of David Brainerd.... If we live 29 years or if we live 99 years, would not any hardships be worth the saving of one person from the eternal torments of hell for the everlasting enjoyment of the glory of God?"
"Remember your leaders who have spoken God's word to you. As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith." (Hebrews 13:7)
Other Media:  Transcript (website)

Labels: audio, christian hedonism, faith, favorites, foreign missions, Grace, ministry, sovereignty, suffering and sacrifice, testimony, the unwasted life

Title:  Peculiar Doctrines, Public Morals, and the Political Welfare (Reflections on the Life and Labor of William Wilberforce) [MP3]
Speaker:  John Piper
Source:  Desiring God Resource Library (Biographies)
Description:  John Piper delivers the encouraging account of William Wilberforce, galvinizing Christians to push hard for justice without relenting.
Wilberforce was "no ordinary pragmatist or political utilitarian, even though he was one of the most practical men of his day. He was a doer. One of his biographers said, 'He lacked time for half the good works in his mind.' James Stephen, who knew him well, remarked, 'Factories did not spring up more rapidly in Leeds and Manchester than schemes of benevolence beneath his roof.' 'No man,' Wilberforce wrote, 'has a right to be idle.' 'Where is it,' he asked, 'that in such a world as this, [that] health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?'"
"Remember your leaders who have spoken God's word to you. As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith." (Hebrews 13:7)
Other Media:  Transcript (website)

Labels: audio, culture, faith, favorites, leadership, mercy and justice, racial harmony, suffering and sacrifice, testimony, the unwasted life

Title:  How Few There Are Who Die So Hard! (Suffering and Success in the Life of Adoniram Judson: The Cost of Bringing Christ to Burma) [MP3]
Speaker:  John Piper
Source:  Desiring God Resource Library (Biographies)
Description:  John Piper tells the story of one of my spiritual heroes, Adoniram Judson.
"Our Lord Jesus said to us in very solemn words, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit' (John 12:24). Then he adds this: 'Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life' (John 12:25). In other words, a fruitful life and an eternal life come from this: dying like a seed and hating your life in this world. What overwhelms me, as I ponder this and trace the life of Adoniram Judson, America's first foreign missionary, is how strategic it was that he died so many times and in so many ways."
"Remember your leaders who have spoken God's word to you. As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith." (Hebrews 13:7)
Other Media:  Transcript (website)

Labels: audio, churchplanting, faith, favorites, foreign missions, ministry, suffering and sacrifice, testimony, the unwasted life

Title:  God Seeks a Man of Faith [MP3]
Speaker:  Alan Redpath
Source:  SermonAudio.com
Description:  A well-reasoned explanation of the definition of spiritual "faith." Redpath elucidates the truth that faith is not a work. He explains how it is insulting to God to compliment someone for their faith in God.
(This sermon is wrongly titled "God Seeks a Man of Prayer" on SermonAudio.com, compare with the SermonIndex.net sermon by Alan Redpath titled "God Seeks a Man of Prayer." The original title of this sermon is unknown, so I defaulted to calling it "God Seeks a Man of Faith," as it seemed fitting.)

Labels: audio, faith