Your Life’s Greatest Problem

00:00:00.000 | The following is a short clip from a sermon on Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25

00:00:09.600 | about the ongoing intercession of Christ on our behalf. In it, John Piper reminds

00:00:15.160 | us of our greatest problem and of our greatest hope. Here's what he said. "From

00:00:20.800 | what am I being saved? Now the reason I start with this is because in our

00:00:27.240 | culture, which is increasingly a post-Christian culture, you can't assume

00:00:34.120 | that the word 'saved' 'are you saved' means anything to anybody or that the word

00:00:40.560 | 'salvation' means anything. They might fill those words up with meaning totally

00:00:45.960 | contrary to the Bible and so we have to get at least our heads and our hearts

00:00:51.240 | straight on this matter of what we are being saved from. Now let me pose the

00:00:58.200 | question for you. Don't jump around to other parts of the Bible, just stay right

00:01:02.960 | here with this verse. If I say my ongoing salvation depends on Christ's ongoing

00:01:12.840 | intercessory work for me with the Father, what do I need saving from? The Father, God.

00:01:22.400 | Else I would not need an intercessor. Intercessors interpose themselves to

00:01:29.360 | help fix something that isn't fixed or to keep something fixed that is fixed.

00:01:36.640 | The big issue is God's wrath. Now let's just get this real clear and real

00:01:44.560 | straight because I have the feeling we live in such a kind of touchy-feely day

00:01:49.800 | that Christianity is being so psychologized and so therapeutized that

00:01:56.640 | we really do believe this book was written for our mental health. It wasn't.

00:02:00.920 | It was written to help us get right with a wrathful God. God is one great massive

00:02:10.840 | fire of holiness. He hates sin and cannot abide it. We are little ant-like

00:02:22.080 | sinners of sin and if we got within 10 trillion miles of this God, we'd be

00:02:30.080 | consumed. The problem in the universe is not our fragile marriages. The problem in

00:02:38.000 | the universe is not my failing health. The problem in the universe is not my

00:02:43.960 | wayward children. The problem in the universe is not the conflicts at work.

00:02:50.800 | The problem that the Bible was written to deal with is I have no hope of

00:02:58.560 | drawing near to God without being consumed because I'm a sinner and unless

00:03:04.480 | there is some kind of priest who can wrap me around with all he is and take

00:03:12.440 | me into the center of this fire, there's no hope for me at all. That's what the

00:03:18.760 | Bible is about. Now there are some spin-offs for our mental health and our

00:03:23.000 | marriages and our kids and our jobs but those are just spin-offs folks and if

00:03:28.880 | everything went wrong and this got right, you would leap for joy forever and ever

00:03:35.800 | and ever because God is the main issue. Life is very short. Sin is very horrid.

00:03:46.320 | Salvation is so needy. So key. We need this reminder over and over again. This was

00:03:55.000 | John Piper in his sermon "Jesus from Melchizedek to Eternal Savior" preached

00:04:00.080 | on December 1, 1996. The excerpt was recommended from podcast listener

00:04:04.740 | Michael Mitchell from Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you Michael for this

00:04:08.600 | clip. You can download the full message and over 1,200 others from our website

00:04:13.440 | at DesiringGod.org. And if you have a favorite John Piper sermon clip, please

00:04:18.120 | email us the name of the sermon and if possible the timestamp of when and where

00:04:22.160 | the clip occurs in the audio. If we post your clip, of course, we will give you

00:04:25.960 | credit. So please put the phrase "sermon clip" in the subject line and send us an

00:04:30.880 | email. Send it to AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. Tomorrow we are back with

00:04:35.580 | Pastor John and he will explain one incredible way the local church trumps

00:04:40.440 | Twitter and Facebook. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.

00:04:45.800 | [BLANK_AUDIO]