Flee to Christ in Fear
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Well, we are to fear God and we are to flee to God.
00:00:09.000 | And while those two things, fearing God and fleeing to Him, may sound oddly contradictory,
00:00:15.000 | they're not.
00:00:16.000 | In 2008, Pastor John preached on Psalm 103, a psalm with some pretty amazing statements
00:00:21.500 | about God's love to those who fear Him.
00:00:24.500 | Verse 11 says, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast
00:00:30.500 | love towards those who fear Him."
00:00:33.500 | And in verse 13 it says, "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows
00:00:38.500 | compassion to those who fear Him."
00:00:42.000 | And in verse 17 it says, "The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
00:00:48.500 | on those who fear Him."
00:00:51.000 | God's covenant love is for those who fear Him.
00:00:54.500 | And the following sermon clip comes from Michael, who lives in the beautiful city of San Diego.
00:01:00.000 | Here's John Piper expounding Psalm 103.
00:01:04.500 | The only people that will eternally experience the love of God as the love of God
00:01:12.000 | are people who fear the Lord.
00:01:15.000 | Is that a separate and distinct requirement over against keeping covenant with Christ,
00:01:25.500 | by trusting His new covenant provisions?
00:01:30.000 | I don't think so.
00:01:32.500 | Here's what I think fearing God means today.
00:01:37.500 | I think fearing God means that God is, in your mind and heart, so powerful and so holy
00:01:50.500 | and so awesome that you would not dare to run away from Him, but only run to Him.
00:02:08.000 | In other words, fearing God is not another requirement.
00:02:13.000 | It's the way you do covenant keeping.
00:02:15.500 | It's the way you receive Jesus.
00:02:17.500 | It's the way you come to Jesus.
00:02:20.500 | You come reverently.
00:02:22.500 | You come humbly.
00:02:24.000 | You come without any presumption that you deserve anything or He owes you anything.
00:02:29.500 | You come trembling, or as we saw in Psalm 51,
00:02:33.500 | you come with a heart that is broken and contrite.
00:02:37.500 | Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
00:02:41.500 | Tremble if you ever feel any inclination to leave this God.
00:02:48.500 | There is only destruction away from Him.
00:02:52.500 | Oh, how we should fear to leave the Lord,
00:02:57.500 | and tremble in His presence that He would so graciously receive us,
00:03:03.500 | forgive all of our sins, and make an everlasting future.
00:03:08.500 | And so many people do not fear their carnal departures.
00:03:17.500 | They don't tremble.
00:03:20.500 | So, my answer to how these two requirements,
00:03:24.500 | the covenant keeping one where you fly to Jesus for His blood and righteousness
00:03:30.500 | and hold fast to Him as your only hope,
00:03:33.500 | and the first one fearing this is just the way you fly.
00:03:40.500 | Your faith in this Christ and your flying to Him desperate and fearful
00:03:49.500 | that you would turn to any other resource
00:03:54.500 | must be real.
00:03:58.500 | Can't play games.
00:04:01.500 | And the Bible is so amply plain that if you have come to Him as Savior,
00:04:08.500 | if you have come to Him as King,
00:04:10.500 | if you have come to Him as treasure,
00:04:12.500 | if you have flown to Him with trembling that you could go any other place,
00:04:19.500 | it's going to change your life.
00:04:21.500 | Period.
00:04:22.500 | It's going to change your life.
00:04:24.500 | It cannot not change you if it's real.
00:04:30.500 | So, we've been together long enough, although there are a lot of guests.
00:04:35.500 | You know I don't believe in Christian perfection.
00:04:38.500 | It ain't going to happen in this age.
00:04:42.500 | Not a single person will live a single day perfectly.
00:04:48.500 | Okay?
00:04:49.500 | Just get that away.
00:04:52.500 | However, you cannot make sense out of the Bible if you don't say
00:05:00.500 | obedience to the commandments as a trajectory of life,
00:05:06.500 | repenting of failures,
00:05:08.500 | confessing sins,
00:05:09.500 | and getting back on has got to happen.
00:05:14.500 | In other words, the central requirement,
00:05:18.500 | the law of keeping through faith in Jesus has got to be real,
00:05:22.500 | and obedience is the evidence that it's real.
00:05:28.500 | It's the sign that it's real.
00:05:29.500 | It's the mark that it's real.
00:05:31.500 | It's the fruit that says the tree's real.
00:05:38.500 | Dads, we would lay our lives down, wouldn't we,
00:05:44.500 | for that to happen in our children.
00:05:47.500 | Because if it doesn't happen,
00:05:50.500 | they will cease to experience the love of God when they die.
00:05:57.500 | And they will experience only wrath from then on.
00:06:01.500 | It's called hell.
00:06:03.500 | And they will cease to experience the righteousness of God as maintaining some kind of order and justice in the world.
00:06:14.500 | And they will experience the righteousness of God only as condemnation from the Holy Judge forever
00:06:20.500 | if our children do not experience covenant keeping,
00:06:28.500 | fearing God,
00:06:30.500 | and the evidence of obedience.
00:06:34.500 | That's why we have families.
00:06:38.500 | That's why fathers exist, to do the impossible,
00:06:45.500 | and to bring our children to that place.
00:06:50.500 | To do the impossible, yeah, that is the true burden of fatherhood,
00:06:54.500 | of bringing into this world eternal beings who must know and understand the wrath of God
00:06:59.500 | and flee from it in Christ.
00:07:01.500 | Sobering call for dads and for moms, fearing God and fleeing to God in Christ.
00:07:08.500 | This clip came in from Michael in San Diego.
00:07:10.500 | Thank you very much, Michael.
00:07:12.500 | All of our clips are now crowdsourced.
00:07:14.500 | You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons changed your life.
00:07:16.500 | And we share that clip with the APJ audience.
00:07:18.500 | If you have one, email it to me.
00:07:20.500 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title,
00:07:22.500 | the timestamp of when the clip happens in the audio,
00:07:25.500 | and tell me how it impacted you.
00:07:27.500 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email
00:07:29.500 | and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:07:33.500 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:07:37.500 | Well, thanks to the smartphone, online dating is now the most common way couples meet.
00:07:42.500 | Not through friends, not at school, not in church.
00:07:46.500 | The vast majority of couples now meet online through apps.
00:07:50.500 | Finding a new date has never been easier.
00:07:53.500 | You just swipe to the right, and that ease is posing a new problem for serial daters.
00:07:58.500 | We'll find out what that is next time.
00:08:01.500 | I'm your host, Tony Rehnke.
00:08:03.500 | We're rejoined in studio with Pastor John when he returns with us on Friday.
00:08:06.500 | We'll see you then.
00:08:08.500 | [no audio]
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00:08:15.500 | you