How Do I Push Truth from My Head to My Heart?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the podcast on this January 11th,

00:00:06.880 | always a big day for us, the podcast, this podcast.

00:00:10.600 | Ask Pastor John turns 10 years old today.

00:00:14.520 | Episode number one aired on January 11th, 2013.

00:00:18.600 | And more importantly, John Piper was born

00:00:21.620 | on January 11th, 1946.

00:00:24.440 | He's 77 years young today.

00:00:27.560 | So Pastor John, when you hear this episode,

00:00:30.120 | happy birthday to you, my friend.

00:00:32.160 | Thank you for this unforgettable decade on the podcast.

00:00:35.520 | And wherever you are today,

00:00:36.840 | enjoy that Butterfinger Blizzard to the glory of God.

00:00:40.840 | Well, we are talking Bible reading today.

00:00:43.480 | How do we turn our daily Bible reading into daily worship?

00:00:48.360 | Early in the new year is a very good time

00:00:50.680 | for a refresher on this topic of how to get truth

00:00:53.600 | from our heads into our hearts.

00:00:56.840 | So we open up to Psalm 77.

00:00:59.080 | Last Wednesday, we saw how the Psalm teaches us

00:01:01.960 | to push past personal discouragement

00:01:04.000 | to get God's truth into our heads.

00:01:08.080 | Asaph, its author, tells us to remember, to meditate,

00:01:12.120 | and to muse upon the deeds and wonders of God in history.

00:01:16.560 | Why?

00:01:17.880 | Because the central biblical strategy

00:01:20.600 | to escape the discouragements of life

00:01:23.160 | is through a conscious effort of the mind.

00:01:28.160 | That's what Pastor John said.

00:01:29.640 | And even when life hurts the most,

00:01:31.760 | we discipline ourselves to get truth into our minds.

00:01:35.360 | And then once it's there in our heads,

00:01:37.200 | we need to get that truth down into our hearts.

00:01:40.000 | And today, Pastor John is gonna explain how he does that

00:01:42.680 | by illustrating the practice from his very own life

00:01:44.920 | in what I think is a pretty remarkable sermon clip

00:01:47.720 | you're about to hear.

00:01:48.720 | Again, taken from his New Year's sermon on Psalm 77,

00:01:52.400 | preached back in the early moments of the year 2000.

00:01:55.840 | Here's Pastor John.

00:01:57.720 | - I know there are more obstacles to joy

00:02:03.640 | than absence of knowledge.

00:02:05.400 | I know that there are physical obstacles.

00:02:09.080 | I know that there are medical reasons.

00:02:12.240 | I know that there are family reasons.

00:02:14.600 | And I know that there are hereditary reasons.

00:02:17.760 | In fact, Aaron shared with me a great essay

00:02:21.880 | or excerpt from a book by Richard Baxter,

00:02:25.560 | who was a great soul doctor 300 years ago,

00:02:29.200 | in which he was dealing with melancholy.

00:02:31.760 | That's the old fashioned word for discouragement

00:02:34.160 | or in its worst cases, depression.

00:02:36.600 | And these old Puritans knew two things.

00:02:41.520 | They knew their souls and they knew their Bibles.

00:02:46.120 | The souls that they knew, they knew were connected to bodies

00:02:49.920 | and they knew these bodies were connected to,

00:02:52.720 | they didn't know anything about genes,

00:02:54.400 | but they knew about moms and dads and granddads

00:02:57.080 | and great granddads.

00:02:57.920 | And they knew the William Cowpers

00:02:59.600 | who tried to kill himself three times.

00:03:00.920 | And they knew it was so of his parents

00:03:02.280 | and they knew it was so of his parents.

00:03:03.720 | And it wasn't too hard to figure out,

00:03:05.120 | hmm, something going on here physically,

00:03:08.960 | as well as family dynamics.

00:03:12.440 | And therefore, the most amazing thing about this essay was,

00:03:14.800 | he had practical guidelines for how to eat,

00:03:17.760 | how to sleep, how to exercise, certain kinds of,

00:03:20.600 | he said, for example, I shouldn't say this,

00:03:22.520 | I won't say it.

00:03:23.680 | It's something about, something to do

00:03:26.520 | with the way you eat and the posture you're in

00:03:28.760 | when you eat.

00:03:29.600 | Can you believe that?

00:03:30.440 | Puritans telling people how to sit while they eat

00:03:32.840 | in order to avoid melancholy, in order to avoid melancholy.

00:03:38.520 | So please don't hear me unfolding this strategy

00:03:42.520 | of the Christian life as oblivious to the fact

00:03:44.960 | these matters are more complex

00:03:46.240 | than simply knowledge in the head.

00:03:48.600 | But here's my question for me mainly,

00:03:52.400 | and I'll let you listen.

00:03:54.280 | When I say I have it in my head,

00:03:57.880 | this Bible knowledge about God,

00:04:01.000 | and it's not work, I'm feeling low still.

00:04:04.560 | My question to me is, when you say,

00:04:10.160 | I have my head filled with Bible doctrine

00:04:12.760 | or Bible knowledge, is that the same

00:04:16.280 | as what's being said here?

00:04:18.840 | I will remember.

00:04:20.760 | Surely I will remember the deeds of all.

00:04:23.360 | I will meditate and I will, surely I will muse.

00:04:28.360 | And I have a feeling, have this little suspicion

00:04:33.760 | that American evangelicals are a very passive

00:04:37.920 | bunch of people when it comes to our emotions.

00:04:41.160 | They come on us and we're passive.

00:04:45.040 | And we've been taught to think somebody did this to me

00:04:48.360 | or I did it to myself, but it's happening to me.

00:04:53.160 | And now, now what?

00:04:56.520 | Now what?

00:04:58.040 | And there's this absence of the great old biblical

00:05:02.040 | Puritan awareness.

00:05:03.680 | There's a strategy of life here.

00:05:07.200 | There's a war to be fought here.

00:05:09.760 | There's a delight to be struggled for here.

00:05:13.040 | There's an intentionality and a purposefulness here.

00:05:15.760 | And if you have just a little mustard seed left

00:05:18.280 | under the weight of the darkness to do something,

00:05:20.880 | there are things that can be done here

00:05:23.040 | that might be blessed of God with.

00:05:25.640 | Verse 13, so I don't think,

00:05:29.840 | and I'm just talking to myself still here, John Piper,

00:05:32.960 | I don't think when you say, I know that about you, God,

00:05:37.360 | and it's not helping me, I don't think that's meditation.

00:05:41.760 | I don't think that's musing.

00:05:44.400 | I think that's coasting.

00:05:47.440 | So what is meditation?

00:05:49.880 | What is musing?

00:05:52.480 | This is something different than saying,

00:05:55.120 | I've got lots of Bible knowledge in my head

00:05:57.040 | and it doesn't help.

00:05:58.000 | That's very different than saying,

00:06:00.520 | I will remember something that's in my head.

00:06:04.600 | I'll pursue it, I'll dig around in there until I find it.

00:06:07.360 | And then what do you do?

00:06:08.200 | Okay, I found it, I've got it.

00:06:09.480 | Or maybe you have to dig in the Bible

00:06:10.600 | 'cause your mind's just not working well enough to remember.

00:06:12.680 | You go dig in there and you dig and you find it.

00:06:15.080 | Then what do you do with it?

00:06:16.240 | Do you do anything with it?

00:06:18.280 | What is meditation?

00:06:21.280 | What is musing?

00:06:22.640 | Well, let me just draw things to a close

00:06:25.520 | with an illustration.

00:06:27.240 | I'll just do it out loud for you, okay?

00:06:28.760 | We'll do a little bit of this now.

00:06:29.960 | You just watch me do it.

00:06:31.520 | I will talk out loud what I would talk inside.

00:06:34.840 | Suppose I come into year 2000

00:06:37.320 | and I'm feeling absolutely like a failure.

00:06:40.440 | Last year was terrible.

00:06:42.080 | I hardly ever read in the Bible.

00:06:43.600 | I hardly ever prayed.

00:06:45.320 | I mouthed off over and over again

00:06:48.240 | in the wrong circumstances.

00:06:49.760 | Lust got all out of hand, blah, blah, blah.

00:06:52.080 | It was one awful year.

00:06:54.160 | And I frankly feel worthless and hopeless

00:06:56.600 | as I enter the year 2000.

00:06:59.320 | So suppose that's where you are now.

00:07:01.160 | And you hear a sermon like this.

00:07:05.600 | You say, "Well, it didn't work.

00:07:06.440 | "It didn't work last year.

00:07:07.680 | "It doesn't work."

00:07:08.520 | I grew up in the church, for goodness sakes.

00:07:10.720 | My head's stocked full of Bible knowledge

00:07:12.840 | about the Exodus.

00:07:14.640 | Doesn't work.

00:07:17.120 | All right, I will remember the deeds of the Lord.

00:07:23.360 | I remember a day 2000 years ago

00:07:27.120 | when on a Roman cross of execution

00:07:29.120 | there was the greatest, most loving, most kind,

00:07:31.720 | most gentle, most wise, sinless man

00:07:36.040 | that ever was hanging on the cross.

00:07:38.520 | I will call this to mind.

00:07:40.040 | And he is suffering greatly.

00:07:42.280 | His head is thorned and his face is beat up.

00:07:45.880 | His beard is plucked out.

00:07:47.920 | His back is lacerated.

00:07:49.760 | Nails are through his hands and his feet.

00:07:51.240 | He can barely breathe.

00:07:52.200 | He has screamed himself hoarse

00:07:53.880 | and can no longer scream and is on the brink of death.

00:07:57.120 | And next to him on either side is a thief.

00:07:59.880 | They have both railed at him, cursed him.

00:08:03.200 | Get yourself and us down if you're some big shot Messiah.

00:08:07.760 | And then I will call to mind

00:08:09.800 | that one of those thieves suddenly,

00:08:13.200 | inexplicably, awesomely looks over at this Christ and says,

00:08:18.200 | "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

00:08:26.160 | And I will call to mind where'd that come from?

00:08:31.160 | He was cursing the Lord.

00:08:34.560 | He was making fun of this bleeding Messiah.

00:08:38.360 | Where did that come from?

00:08:40.080 | And I will remember the work of grace,

00:08:43.280 | the work of sovereign grace in the 11th hour.

00:08:46.320 | Here's a man who did nothing but wrong all his life,

00:08:48.480 | never had one act of obedience of faith,

00:08:51.680 | deserves hell and is about 20 minutes away from hell.

00:08:55.120 | And he presumes to say, "Remember me."

00:08:59.600 | Remember you?

00:09:00.440 | I'll remember you, I'll send you straight to hell, right?

00:09:03.680 | That's what I do with people like you,

00:09:05.160 | thieves all their life long.

00:09:06.480 | I will meditate on the mighty deeds of Christ

00:09:09.440 | who looked over the nail on his right hand and said,

00:09:13.640 | and the plaintiffs didn't stop to move

00:09:16.040 | or stop moving for some reason,

00:09:18.680 | "Today, you will be with me in paradise."

00:09:22.280 | And I will not leave that and go off to my pity party

00:09:27.280 | and say, "It doesn't work.

00:09:30.320 | "I've got that knowledge in my head

00:09:31.840 | "and it doesn't change anything."

00:09:33.280 | I will linger with that sentence.

00:09:36.560 | I will stay with that sentence.

00:09:38.080 | I will take hold of that sentence

00:09:39.840 | and not let it go until it blesses me.

00:09:41.920 | And it doesn't have to be long with that sentence

00:09:43.880 | for me anyway.

00:09:45.120 | Today, you thief in the 11th hour

00:09:49.360 | with nothing to commend yourself to God whatsoever,

00:09:52.080 | you don't even have time to get out and obey

00:09:54.360 | and show yourself that you're real.

00:09:56.200 | You're gonna go straight with me to paradise.

00:09:59.840 | What kind of grace is that that I might be a part of?

00:10:06.360 | - That is an amazing Christ-centered,

00:10:08.360 | cross-centered sermon clip taken from a message preached

00:10:11.760 | on January 2nd, 2000 on Psalm 77,

00:10:15.760 | titled "I Will Meditate on All Your Work

00:10:18.560 | "and Muse on Your Deeds."

00:10:21.520 | That's the title.

00:10:22.360 | The full message is in the sermon archive

00:10:23.760 | at desiringgod.org.

00:10:25.840 | A fitting word for us in these early days of 2023.

00:10:28.960 | Thank you for joining us

00:10:29.880 | as we begin our second decade of APJ.

00:10:32.360 | Now, you can ask a question of your own,

00:10:33.960 | search our growing archive,

00:10:35.000 | or subscribe to the podcast all at askpastorjohn.com.

00:10:38.800 | Well, Asaph is the author of Psalm 77

00:10:42.680 | and he was so deeply despondent

00:10:45.640 | that he could not even sleep.

00:10:48.840 | He says that in Psalm 77, verse four.

00:10:52.160 | There are physical dimensions to despondency

00:10:55.320 | and we are gonna look at those next time.

00:10:57.600 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:59.560 | We'll see you back here on Friday.

00:11:01.240 | (upbeat music)

00:11:03.840 | (upbeat music)

00:11:06.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Push Truth from My Head to My Heart?

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