How Do I Own Biblical Truths for Myself?

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00:00:04.800 | This is maybe a little bit more of an abstract question than we normally get,

00:00:07.500 | and it comes from two different listeners.

00:00:09.000 | Mark writes in to ask this,

00:00:10.900 | "Pastor John, I'm an analytical thinker and have in the past devoured your books.

00:00:14.300 | Call me a piper groupie.

00:00:15.900 | I find myself intellectually satisfied and yet spiritually lacking in my heart.

00:00:19.300 | I believe and understand and am thrilled by what I read, but it just isn't mine.

00:00:23.100 | I haven't experienced it as my own.

00:00:24.800 | I figure I need to seek Jesus myself in prayer and meditate on the Word

00:00:28.500 | and not just read about it.

00:00:29.800 | You are certainly analytical, but you have made biblical truths your own.

00:00:33.000 | Can you comment on how to move beyond unapplied analysis?"

00:00:36.700 | And related to this, Chris emails in to ask this,

00:00:39.800 | "Many times I feel I know a lot about God instead of knowing God.

00:00:43.200 | Pastor John, am I missing an intimacy other Christians have?"

00:00:47.000 | Well, let me take those together because I think, Tony, that

00:00:52.400 | at least they sound to me like they're very—they're coming from the same place.

00:00:57.200 | And my answer is, to use the words of Chris's question,

00:01:01.500 | yes, you are missing an intimacy that some, and I'm saying some, other Christians have.

00:01:11.300 | They don't always have it.

00:01:13.100 | They have it now, maybe, but they may not have it tomorrow.

00:01:16.800 | You have something that they, some of them, don't have in your grasp of Scripture.

00:01:23.900 | And the point of saying both of those, that yes, they have something

00:01:26.900 | you don't have, and yes, you have something they don't have,

00:01:29.900 | is to protect us from thinking in a kind of simplistic way about the affections of the human heart.

00:01:43.100 | There are so many different kinds of Christian hearts and different kinds of experiences,

00:01:51.900 | emotional heart experiences of the living Christ.

00:01:56.000 | So we must beware of thinking in simple either/or categories.

00:02:01.600 | The kind of experience that we're talking about,

00:02:05.100 | that I think these brothers so long to experience, is a heartfelt brokenness,

00:02:11.600 | a heartfelt fear of God, joy or thankfulness or tenderheartedness,

00:02:18.400 | remorse for sin, compassion for the lost, admiration for Christ, hope in His promises.

00:02:26.000 | Those are the kinds of things we're talking about when we say our heart,

00:02:30.800 | heartfelt affections or emotions.

00:02:34.000 | And the fact is, they're never constant.

00:02:38.000 | Not even from one hour to the next in the soul of a saint are they constant.

00:02:44.300 | They rise, they fall, they burn, they cool, they hover in the middle, and they dip and rise.

00:02:51.300 | They're a moving target.

00:02:53.400 | So every one of us, with our unique capacities for emotion in Christ,

00:03:02.900 | have to be very careful never to say as a Christian, "I don't have those."

00:03:09.300 | And we should never say, "I've got all I need."

00:03:13.700 | No Christian has what we need, and no Christian has none.

00:03:18.300 | You're not a Christian if you don't have any awakenings of affection for Jesus.

00:03:24.900 | There are always greater ones to be had at any moment.

00:03:29.900 | We live in a fallen world with fallen bodies and fallen minds and fallen hearts,

00:03:36.200 | and we groan, Paul says, longing for the final deliverance.

00:03:41.700 | And what strikes me as especially encouraging in these questions—

00:03:47.700 | and I would just address these brothers Mark and Chris directly—

00:03:51.700 | what encourages me about you is that you are really bothered by the level of affections that you have for God.

00:04:02.900 | You wish you had more.

00:04:04.900 | You feel like second-handers.

00:04:07.300 | You read a book and see what others feel, and that gives some measure of satisfaction,

00:04:12.300 | but you feel—but they're not mine, at least not in the intensity that I seem to be reading about them in others.

00:04:20.300 | And I simply want to say that's very encouraging to me,

00:04:24.900 | because I know Christians who are cool in their affections, and it doesn't bother them at all.

00:04:32.500 | They're not writing anybody for advice.

00:04:34.900 | They're not desperately seeking help with this.

00:04:38.300 | And so the very longing to have what you don't feel you have is a having,

00:04:44.900 | which is more precious than you may realize.

00:04:48.700 | So my concern here is simply to help you fight for joy,

00:04:53.400 | rather than to give you a momentary high that you might have right now,

00:04:58.200 | and then not have tomorrow and wonder what happened to you.

00:05:01.800 | And the simplest strategy that I can give is to say, "Pray earnestly for these affections the way the psalmist does and the way Paul does.

00:05:14.500 | Incline my heart to your testimonies.

00:05:16.700 | Open my eyes to see wonders.

00:05:19.000 | Satisfy me in the morning.

00:05:20.800 | Create in me a clean heart.

00:05:22.700 | Renew a right and willing spirit.

00:05:25.800 | Restore the joy of my salvation."

00:05:29.000 | It's amazing to me that the psalmist prays that way, because he's praying like Mark and Chris would want to pray, I think.

00:05:36.400 | And Paul does the same for his churches.

00:05:39.000 | He says to the Ephesians in chapter 1, "I remember you in my prayers,

00:05:47.500 | asking that the eyes of your hearts would be open so that you know the hope you've been called to,

00:05:52.900 | and know the riches of your inheritance, and know the power that's at work in you."

00:05:57.200 | And he doesn't mean know like the devil knows.

00:06:00.200 | I mean, the devil knows these things and hates them.

00:06:02.800 | He means know like you know honey is sweet when you taste it, and you know velvet is smooth when you touch it,

00:06:09.200 | and you know that the new-cut grass out in the front is sweet when you smell it.

00:06:16.900 | That's the kind of knowing Paul is praying for here.

00:06:20.700 | I do this virtually every day.

00:06:23.800 | I just want these brothers to know that I'm with them in the fight.

00:06:27.400 | I pray every day for my affections not to die and to be quickened and made lively.

00:06:35.200 | And the phrase that's right at the top of my prayer list is, "Hallowed be your name."

00:06:40.700 | And if you stop and think about the word "hallowed," "sanctified," that is, what you're praying for is,

00:06:45.900 | "God, help me with my whole being to set your name in a place of great sacredness, and great purity, and great love, and great honor.

00:06:56.000 | Help me to see and savor the worth of your name with all my heart and soul and mind and strength."

00:07:03.200 | So that's right at the top of my prayer list every day, and it's a prayer from my heart.

00:07:09.000 | So take the Word of God praying.

00:07:12.400 | That's the key.

00:07:13.400 | Ephesians 6, what, verse 17, I think.

00:07:17.400 | "Take the sword of the Spirit, praying at all times."

00:07:21.400 | Take the sword praying.

00:07:23.200 | Take the sword praying.

00:07:25.700 | Never take the sword by itself.

00:07:27.700 | Never pray by itself.

00:07:29.100 | Always take the Word of God and pray it into reality in your life, and then bank on one aspect of that sword, namely the promise of God.

00:07:39.600 | "I will put the fear of me in your hearts, and you will not turn from me."

00:07:44.900 | So I would say to Mark and Chris and the hundreds of people who share this struggle, God will complete the work that He's begun in us.

00:07:56.400 | Yes, He will.

00:07:57.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:58.300 | For more on fighting for joy in God, there's a series of messages from a 2005 regional conference, which you can find at DesiringGod.org by searching for the titles "How to Fight for Joy."

00:08:07.000 | There you will find three sessions and one question and answer session as well.

00:08:10.200 | Again, those can be found online at DesiringGod.org under the title "How to Fight for Joy," all available free of charge.

00:08:16.700 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:08:17.500 | Thanks for listening.

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How Do I Own Biblical Truths for Myself?

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