John Piper’s Favorite Hymn
00:00:00.000 | I was delighted to find this email question in the inbox because I don't think anyone has asked it before.
00:00:05.440 | I may be wrong. Maybe I missed it. But today's question comes from a podcast listener named Sue.
00:00:10.640 | Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for this podcast. My question is, what is your favorite hymn and why is it your favorite?
00:00:18.640 | Well, I love to sing.
00:00:23.760 | And especially with God's people.
00:00:28.960 | On the Lord's Day, gathered for worship in an atmosphere of serious joy and carried along by
00:00:34.480 | the Holy Spirit with well-expressed truth about the greatness and the beauty and excellence of
00:00:41.040 | all that God is for us in Christ. I believe that when this comes from the heart of hundreds of
00:00:50.160 | people or dozens of people or thousands of people, when it comes from the heart of a united, humble,
00:00:58.800 | holiness-pursuing, justice-pursuing, love-pursuing people, God delights in this sound with all His heart.
00:01:09.520 | During my 33 years of pastoring Bethlehem Baptist Church, many of the highest and the sweetest
00:01:21.920 | moments of my life were spent standing at the front pew singing with all my heart as the crescendo
00:01:33.120 | of the people's praise broke over my head from behind like a wave of joy and hope. God ministered
00:01:43.760 | to me in those moments, ministered to my marriage in those moments, ministered to my relationships
00:01:52.160 | more deeply at those times, I believe, than any other time I'm aware of. That's saying a lot,
00:02:02.000 | and I'm saying it carefully. Things happened spiritually in my heart that kept me in the
00:02:10.800 | ministry, kept me in marriage, kept me fathering, kept me in friendships. Things happened spiritually
00:02:20.400 | in my heart concerning my relation to God and to my wife and other people, the ripple effects of
00:02:27.840 | which I will never fully know until heaven. But they were profound, and on many Sundays, they were
00:02:37.200 | deeply needed. So I do not take corporate singing of hymns in worship to Christ lightly, and I do not
00:02:49.440 | take the words of songs lightly, or the suitableness of the tunes to fit the words lightly,
00:02:57.360 | or the blood earnestness and the vertical radicalness of the atmosphere of the service
00:03:04.160 | as the people go hard after God, or the spiritual demeanor of the leaders who can be wonderfully
00:03:10.240 | helpful or very distracting, or the preciousness of the fellowship in song. I can remember—here's
00:03:17.040 | an element of the horizontal nature of vertical focus—I can remember moments when my heart was
00:03:24.800 | flat and next to me was a precious comrade in ministry. I'm remembering, for example,
00:03:32.240 | Tom Stellar in particular, who served with me all my ministry and still serving.
00:03:38.240 | Here he stands with his eyes closed and his hands lifted high in praise while I'm feeling flat,
00:03:52.400 | and oh, how this regularly, profoundly ministered to me, stirred me, awakened me, rebuked me,
00:04:04.080 | drew me up to God. There's a dimension to the horizontal reality of radically vertical worship
00:04:13.840 | that is incomparable. And then there's nothing like the act of preaching, expository exaltation—in
00:04:23.280 | other words, preaching is worship—preaching, coming on the wings of such praises. Preaching
00:04:29.600 | to a people in that kind of God-saturated hour is a wonderful thing. There's just nothing like it.
00:04:39.600 | So instead of my favorite hymn, since I don't know what it is, I will mention one of my favorites.
00:04:49.520 | What qualifies a hymn to be in this group is the mingling of sorrow and joy—these are my criteria
00:04:58.960 | for what's in my favorite group—the mingling of sorrow and joy, brokenness and hope, divine
00:05:06.800 | tenderness and sovereign majesty, exalted focus and intimate personal expression, beautiful poetry,
00:05:16.480 | a tune that fits all those things in both seriousness of emotion and exaltation of hope.
00:05:23.680 | And I think I would put into that category, "It is well with my soul, a mighty fortress,
00:05:29.360 | oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, come thou fount, my song is love unknown, and can it be,
00:05:35.440 | crowned with many crowns, be thou my vision?" And the list, frankly, would get very long if I kept
00:05:42.480 | going. There are many stunningly powerful and great hymns that accomplish all those things for
00:05:48.720 | me. But the one that I want to mention is "If thou but suffer God to guide thee," which you've
00:05:56.640 | probably never heard of. "If thou but suffer God to guide thee." And here's the catch. This is a
00:06:04.320 | translation of the German hymn by Georg Neumark, 1641, "Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten."
00:06:14.640 | And it has seven verses in the original, and no modern English hymnal that I'm aware of has all
00:06:24.800 | seven verses. Some have tried to modernize the song and give it—it's awful, it's awful what they do
00:06:34.960 | to Catherine Winkworth's translation, and yet they think they can do better with the German than her
00:06:40.960 | when they didn't even know German. But let me give you a flavor of Georg Neumark's own tune,
00:06:48.640 | because he wrote the tune and he wrote the words. It's in a minor key, which is where I think songs
00:06:57.600 | of this content need to be. And when sung robustly, which minor songs can be sung by a congregation
00:07:08.080 | that sees and loves this truth, it has a bulwark-like effect of strength and hope.
00:07:18.080 | [singing]
00:07:46.080 | That's the way it sounds. And I love the hymn because of all the reasons given above,
00:07:52.080 | and because I discovered it when I was living in Germany, and it became—this
00:07:57.280 | is why it's so near the top—it became, along with "God Moves in a Mysterious Way,"
00:08:03.120 | the weapon of hope in those difficult years. I love it because the words express
00:08:13.760 | hope in the worst of times because of an absolutely sovereign and merciful God.
00:08:21.040 | So I'm going to read it and then be done. So I'll just read the English so that you can get
00:08:26.560 | the flavor. I could never find the translation of verse 5, so I translated verse 5 in this 7,
00:08:34.400 | because I have the 7 German right here in front of me on page 298 of my German songbook.
00:08:43.760 | "If thou but suffer God to guide thee, And hope in him through all thy ways,
00:08:48.000 | He'll give thee strength whate'er betide thee, And bear thee through the evil days.
00:08:53.040 | Who trusts in God's unchanging love, Builds on a rock that naught can move?
00:08:59.600 | What can these anxious cares avail thee, These never-ceasing moans and sighs?
00:09:07.920 | What can it help if thou bewail thee, Or each dark moment as it flies?
00:09:14.480 | Our cross and trials do but press The heavier for our bitterness.
00:09:20.640 | Only be still and wait his leisure, In cheerful hope with heart content,
00:09:28.560 | To take whate'er thy Father's pleasure And his discerning love has sent.
00:09:34.560 | Nor doubt our inmost wants are known To him who chose us for his own.
00:09:40.960 | He knows the time for joy, And truly will send it when he sees it meet,
00:09:46.480 | When he has tried and purged thee duly, And finds thee free from all deceit.
00:09:51.920 | He comes to thee all unaware, And makes thee own his loving care.
00:09:59.360 | Think not that God has thee forsaken, When sorrow crowns your acts of care,
00:10:05.680 | Nor that he sleeps and cannot waken, While evil prospers everywhere.
00:10:11.120 | Each recompense will have its hour; God sets the times with love and power.
00:10:18.880 | All are alike before the highest. 'Tis easy to our God we know to raise thee up,
00:10:28.000 | Though low thou liest to make the rich man poor and low.
00:10:32.560 | True wonders still by him are wrought, Who setteth up and brings to naught.
00:10:39.760 | Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving; So do thine own part faithfully,
00:10:47.920 | And trust his word, though undeserving. Thou yet shalt find it true for thee,
00:10:55.120 | God never yet forsook at need the soul that trusted him indeed. Amen.
00:11:04.480 | Amen. That's beautiful. What a great find, Pastor John. Thanks for sharing it with us on the podcast.
00:11:10.640 | And thank you, Sue, for that great question. Of course, we celebrate Christmas coming up
00:11:16.800 | on Sunday and bound up with the Christmas narrative are a lot of beautiful hymns to sing.
00:11:21.520 | But the story of Christ's birth brings with it a reminder of his whole life and all of his works.
00:11:27.360 | And that means it is also a season for us to reflect on his sacrifice. And on Friday,
00:11:31.440 | we will do that very thing as we look at the theme of sacrifice throughout the Bible
00:11:36.320 | and to see once again just how this major theme in God's grand storyline is fulfilled
00:11:42.000 | in the person of Jesus Christ. Until then, you can find our audio feeds in our episode archive,
00:11:48.160 | and you can reach our inbox all through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:55.440 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Friday.
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