Confronting Lukewarm Worship

00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast.

00:00:05.680 | Well, why does it sometimes seem that our worship is thinning out over time?

00:00:10.200 | And why does it seem that church worship grows flat over time as well?

00:00:14.160 | These are realities we all face at some point, and they lead us to consider the first implication

00:00:18.280 | of seeing and savoring the providence of God.

00:00:22.040 | With the release of Pastor John's new book, Providence, for the next several weeks we

00:00:26.160 | are considering reasons why the providence of God, this precious doctrine that we hold

00:00:30.680 | so dear, why it's essential to how we live out our daily Christian lives.

00:00:35.840 | Last Wednesday we opened this new series in episode 1571, looking at why we must live

00:00:41.760 | aware of God's providence.

00:00:44.320 | Now we get very specific.

00:00:46.480 | There are 10 real-life effects and implications of this doctrine on our lives.

00:00:51.960 | Here with implication number one is Pastor John.

00:00:56.240 | The question we are posing is this.

00:00:59.800 | What are the real-life effects of knowing and loving, seeing and savoring the all-pervasive,

00:01:11.160 | all-embracing providence of the ever-wise, ever-just, ever-merciful God of Scripture?

00:01:20.400 | That's our question.

00:01:22.040 | And my first answer is this.

00:01:24.960 | Seeing and savoring this providence awakens and sustains wonder and awe and holy reverence

00:01:35.880 | and the kind of trembling joy that leads us into the depth of true, God-centered, Christ-exalting,

00:01:45.360 | Bible-saturated worship.

00:01:49.320 | How many times have people asked us on this podcast about their lukewarmness, about how

00:01:57.120 | inadequate their affections are for God, about how passion and zeal and joy could possibly

00:02:06.760 | be rekindled.

00:02:09.360 | And now I'm asking, do you know him?

00:02:13.840 | I mean the real, true, magnificent, mouth-stopping God of all-embracing providence.

00:02:23.960 | When I was in college, I struggled with those same things.

00:02:27.960 | I read a book by J.B.

00:02:30.200 | Phillips, "Your God is Too Small."

00:02:33.440 | Remember it, some of you 70-year-olds?

00:02:36.920 | I knew it was true.

00:02:38.040 | I knew it was true.

00:02:40.000 | But you can't just snap your finger and see the majesty of God.

00:02:44.760 | I was blind to the all-pervasive, all-embracing providence of God, the grandeur of the all-governing,

00:02:54.640 | purposeful sovereignty of God.

00:02:57.520 | I had, in fact, been taught not to see the actual ruling God, the omnipotence of God

00:03:07.920 | as it is in the Bible, the God of the Bible.

00:03:12.240 | That's what I had missed, the God who really is.

00:03:15.800 | It was as if glasses had been put on my face that shrank everything down, except maybe

00:03:23.680 | for myself.

00:03:25.880 | The glasses made God manageable.

00:03:28.840 | Now, within a couple of years, after reading "Your God is Too Small," thank God, I

00:03:36.680 | to this day, thank God, some professors grabbed me by the hair and rubbed my nose in the book

00:03:44.360 | of Romans and wouldn't let me up until I had seen and smelled and tasted and been stunned

00:03:52.320 | by the God of chapters 8 and 9 of Romans.

00:03:56.800 | All praise to God, I say, all praise to God for those who would not let me escape from

00:04:04.200 | Scripture into some philosophical detour that strips God of the glory of his all-governing

00:04:11.280 | providence.

00:04:13.440 | My heart aches to this day.

00:04:16.320 | In fact, I got a letter just the other day from a pastor who is leaving his church because

00:04:21.280 | the elders wanted to go a new, seeker direction.

00:04:24.540 | My heart aches for so many churches bent on being lightweight, seeker-friendly churches

00:04:33.040 | while their people are starving.

00:04:36.160 | They don't know what they're starving for, but they're starving for the greatness of

00:04:41.600 | God.

00:04:42.600 | David Wells, 25 years ago, in his book on "No Place for Truth," put it like this,

00:04:50.800 | "It is this God, majestic and holy in his being, this God whose love knows no bounds

00:05:00.320 | because his holiness knows no limits, who has disappeared from the modern evangelical

00:05:08.320 | world."

00:05:09.320 | Well, yes, that's an overstatement, but it's not without warrant.

00:05:14.600 | Leslie Newbigin, from the British angle, said the same thing.

00:05:19.840 | He said, "I suddenly saw that someone could use all the language of evangelical Christianity,

00:05:26.840 | and yet the center was fundamentally the self, and God is auxiliary to that.

00:05:36.040 | True worship is ruined, reduced, gutted, flattened when the majesty of God, especially seen in

00:05:46.240 | his all-embracing providence, is replaced with a focus on me and my world and how God

00:05:55.040 | can make me the center of his focus rather than making his greatness the focus of mine."

00:06:02.360 | If we see and savor the biblical panorama of the providence of God for what it really

00:06:09.640 | is, we will lift our hands in silence, groping for words that do not feel pitiful before

00:06:20.720 | his majesty.

00:06:22.240 | He is great beyond our comprehension.

00:06:26.040 | God has shown us in the Bible more of himself and more of his ways than we will ever exhaust

00:06:32.320 | in this world.

00:06:33.520 | I have filled a book, a 700-page book on providence, by simply tracing his counterintuitive wonders

00:06:43.300 | through Scripture.

00:06:45.000 | He has not been sparing in his revelation of his splendors.

00:06:49.860 | They are meant to make us soar and sing over the purposeful sovereignty of God.

00:06:57.760 | And how can we not be God-besotted when every day we are immersed in an ocean of God-given,

00:07:07.000 | God-governed, God-revealing wonders as we are every day?

00:07:13.200 | Did not Hannah sing over this providence?

00:07:22.560 | The Lord kills and brings to life, the Lord makes poor and makes rich, he brings low and

00:07:28.840 | he exalts.

00:07:30.240 | Did not Miriam sing over this providence?

00:07:34.240 | The horse and the rider he has thrown into the sea.

00:07:38.160 | Did not Moses follow her in song over this providence?

00:07:43.360 | Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea.

00:07:47.680 | In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries.

00:07:52.640 | Who is like you?

00:07:53.960 | Majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders.

00:08:00.080 | And did not the psalmist sing and sing and sing over this providence?

00:08:06.020 | The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing.

00:08:09.160 | He frustrates the plans of the peoples.

00:08:12.140 | The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.

00:08:18.440 | He makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth.

00:08:21.640 | He breaks the bow, shatters the spear.

00:08:24.520 | He burns the chariots with fire.

00:08:27.480 | Whatever the Lord pleases, he does.

00:08:30.820 | In heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

00:08:35.000 | And did not Mary, Mary the mother of Jesus, sing over this providence?

00:08:40.640 | In Luke 1, the Lord has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

00:08:46.360 | He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

00:08:53.600 | That's Mary talking.

00:08:54.600 | Oh, bless her.

00:08:55.600 | No wonder we call her Blessed Virgin.

00:09:00.080 | And did not Paul sing over this providence?

00:09:03.920 | Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

00:09:08.320 | How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.

00:09:13.120 | For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given

00:09:17.720 | a gift to him that he should be repaid?

00:09:20.480 | For from him and through him and to him are all things.

00:09:27.920 | To him be glory forever and ever.

00:09:32.900 | If there are believers or churches whose worship feels thin and passive and routine, could

00:09:42.040 | it be that they just do not know this providence, this God?

00:09:50.280 | So real life effect number one, at least in my life, and I have seen it true in hundreds,

00:10:00.320 | real life effect number one of seeing and savoring the providence of God is this.

00:10:08.720 | It awakens and sustains wonder and awe and holy reverence and a kind of trembling joy

00:10:18.000 | that leads us into the depth of true God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, soaring

00:10:26.160 | with song worship.

00:10:28.680 | Powerful.

00:10:30.240 | The providence of God has this type of a deep influence in our lives.

00:10:34.800 | Such a great reminder.

00:10:35.800 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:37.880 | Next Wednesday we will return with effect number two, but up next time on the podcast

00:10:43.240 | we field one of your excellent questions from the inbox, and it's this question.

00:10:48.040 | Is the audiobook Bible sufficient for my daily Bible reading?

00:10:52.560 | Is the audiobook Bible sufficient for my daily Bible reading?

00:10:56.800 | It's a great question from a listener to the podcast who is a professional truck driver.

00:11:01.760 | That's up on Friday when we return.

00:11:03.160 | I'm Tony Reinke.

00:11:04.160 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime pastor and author John

00:11:08.720 | Piper.

00:11:09.720 | We'll see you Friday.

00:11:09.720 | [end]

00:11:10.220 | 1. Is the audiobook Bible sufficient for my daily Bible reading? Is the audiobook Bible

00:11:11.220 | sufficient for my daily Bible reading?

00:11:11.220 | 2. Is the audiobook Bible sufficient for my daily Bible reading?

00:11:18.220 | You

Confronting Lukewarm Worship

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