How Can I Make Daily Bible Reading Authentic?

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

00:00:05.640 | Well, you know, listeners to this podcast will know that John Piper preached

00:00:09.720 | through the entire book of Romans in 225 sermons.

00:00:14.540 | Incredible.

00:00:15.580 | The series took him eight years and eight months to complete, spanning from

00:00:19.460 | the spring of 1998 to the end of 2006.

00:00:22.800 | All 225 of those rich messages are collected together and can be found

00:00:28.560 | online under the series title, The Greatest Letter Ever Written.

00:00:33.320 | That's what you want to look for, The Greatest Letter Ever Written.

00:00:35.920 | The series is also the most epic John Piper sermon series ever recorded.

00:00:39.680 | And I know many of you have listened to it all, and as you do, you'll come across

00:00:44.200 | a bunch of little nuggets along the way, like this clip I want to play for you

00:00:47.560 | today, sent in by a listener to the podcast.

00:00:49.440 | In the following sermon, Pastor John gets into the topic of how do we ensure that

00:00:53.400 | our daily Bible reading discipline is authentic and not rote. The topic

00:00:58.920 | arose in the series in a sermon titled, Let Love Be Genuine on Romans 12, verse

00:01:03.080 | 9, preached on November 21st, 2004.

00:01:07.280 | Here's Pastor John.

00:01:08.600 | Let's begin with some thoughts here now from Romans about how to read a text

00:01:15.360 | like this in a way that changes us deeply.

00:01:19.640 | There are 13 exhortations in just verses 9 to 13.

00:01:26.040 | So.

00:01:28.080 | Suppose you get up in the morning and you set yourself like a good Christian to

00:01:33.320 | read your Bible before you head off to work, that's a good idea, you should do

00:01:38.000 | that. So you set yourself maybe to read a few chapters or let's say Romans 12 is

00:01:43.640 | included, may take you three minutes to read through Romans 12, which means that

00:01:49.200 | you give maybe 15 seconds to these 13 commandments, 13 exhortations.

00:01:57.280 | Let love be genuine.

00:01:58.920 | Abhor what is evil.

00:02:00.960 | Hold fast to what is good.

00:02:02.640 | Love one another with brotherly affection.

00:02:05.480 | Outdo one another in showing honor.

00:02:07.600 | Don't be slothful in zeal.

00:02:09.960 | Be fervent in the spirit.

00:02:11.240 | Serve the Lord.

00:02:12.360 | Rejoice in hope.

00:02:13.400 | Be patient in tribulation.

00:02:14.960 | Be constant in prayer.

00:02:16.400 | Contribute to the needs of the saints.

00:02:19.040 | Seek to show hospitality.

00:02:20.400 | 13 in five verses.

00:02:22.480 | You've read them, 15 seconds on them.

00:02:24.880 | Close your Bible, pray, off to work.

00:02:26.920 | How many of them can you even remember?

00:02:28.760 | I mean, are you now fired up and totally engaged and renewed in all 13 new areas of

00:02:35.400 | your life?

00:02:35.920 | Is that the effect of reading the Bible in the morning?

00:02:39.040 | It doesn't work like that, does it?

00:02:41.200 | So what are we supposed to do?

00:02:43.400 | Because Paul didn't write that just to tickle our ears.

00:02:46.080 | He he didn't just write those things for nothing to happen.

00:02:49.120 | He really means all 13 of those exhortations to become reality.

00:02:53.960 | And as we read them to become more and more reality, and as we preach on them to become

00:02:59.040 | more and more reality, they aren't just there.

00:03:01.760 | So we need help for what to do with the Bible so that the Bible becomes powerful,

00:03:09.600 | changes us, right?

00:03:11.680 | This isn't written for nothing.

00:03:14.880 | So to get help, turn with me to chapter 15.

00:03:18.120 | I asked the apostle Paul, Paul, you got any help for us here on how to read chapter 12?

00:03:25.560 | And Paul said, yes, it's here in verses 15 and 16 of chapter 15.

00:03:35.120 | On some points, I have written to you very boldly by way of reminders.

00:03:43.280 | Stop there.

00:03:44.440 | Just realize that the Bible for veteran Christians is mainly repeat.

00:03:50.120 | I will never read a new thing in the Bible.

00:03:54.760 | I've read the Bible dozens and dozens of times, every word of it over and over again.

00:04:00.200 | I'll never see a new word in the Bible.

00:04:02.960 | I pray that I will see new reality, new truth, new power, new implications.

00:04:10.480 | But the words I've seen them all over and over again.

00:04:14.400 | Reminder, don't ever begrudge a small group, a family devotion, a Bible reading,

00:04:23.720 | a sermon that is sheer reminder of what you already know, because God has things in those

00:04:30.280 | old familiar truths that you never saw yet.

00:04:34.160 | Things to change in you haven't been changed yet.

00:04:38.360 | So just be aware the Bible is mainly reminder for old Christians, and that's crucial for

00:04:45.480 | living the Christian life.

00:04:46.560 | So Paul says, I've written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace

00:04:52.960 | given to me.

00:04:53.720 | So know that the Bible is a gracious gift.

00:04:56.920 | Paul was graced to write it for us.

00:05:00.840 | Don't neglect it.

00:05:02.840 | Verse 16, "To be a minister," I have this grace to be a minister of Christ Jesus to

00:05:09.680 | the Gentiles, that's us mainly, "in the priestly service of the gospel so that,"

00:05:19.240 | and here comes the reason for writing this down and doing this ministry, why do we read

00:05:24.360 | Romans 12?

00:05:25.400 | "So that the offering of the Gentiles," so we're now treated like a worship offering,

00:05:32.080 | I should remind you of chapter 12, verse 1, "Present your bodies to living sacrifices,

00:05:36.280 | which is your spiritual service of worship."

00:05:38.120 | We are being offered up by the apostle Paul as worship to God, as we're transformed

00:05:43.360 | into the image of his son, God's son, "So that the offering of the Gentiles may be

00:05:49.720 | acceptable."

00:05:52.160 | So Paul has written Romans so that you and I would become more acceptable.

00:06:01.480 | Is that word acceptable, Renie Bells, from chapter 12?

00:06:05.280 | Verse 2, "Be transformed so that you may prove what is acceptable,

00:06:12.160 | embrace the will of God, acceptable."

00:06:14.440 | And when you do that, this is happening, the offering of the Gentiles,

00:06:18.720 | verse 1, offering worship, verse 2, "Transform to prove what is acceptable."

00:06:23.960 | This is happening by the writing of Romans.

00:06:28.360 | So when you read it, this should be happening, and then comes the

00:06:31.640 | all-decisive phrase, "Sanctified by the Holy Spirit."

00:06:39.960 | You know and I know reading the Bible has zero effect on our lives apart from the

00:06:47.760 | Holy Spirit.

00:06:50.480 | If, in fact, we try to do the Bible without the Holy Spirit,

00:06:54.480 | we become colossal legalists, counting our own moral resolve.

00:07:02.360 | "I can do this.

00:07:04.520 | Watch me."

00:07:06.120 | Instead, what we need is the Holy Spirit.

00:07:09.160 | So now, I have drawn out of these verses three things that help me read Romans 12

00:07:20.160 | life-changingly.

00:07:22.240 | I want to be changed by these messages.

00:07:25.120 | I want to be changed by verse 9, "Let love be without hypocrisy."

00:07:31.560 | I want to be less hypocritical after I read that phrase.

00:07:36.080 | How can I do that?

00:07:37.400 | What will make the difference for a word, a little phrase,

00:07:41.520 | to suddenly have life-changing, powerful power to make me less hypocritical,

00:07:48.880 | more free and authentic and genuine and real in my love?

00:07:54.800 | Here are my three guidelines for how to read that.

00:07:58.360 | One, pray as you read because if the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the Bible and

00:08:05.480 | applies it to us so that it really produces an alteration in our whole

00:08:10.480 | demeanor and our way of seeing God and our way of treating each other,

00:08:13.840 | then we should ask Him.

00:08:15.200 | So when you read, you pause, you say, "Oh, Holy Spirit,

00:08:17.680 | come make this real in my life.

00:08:20.440 | Do whatever you have to do to make me humble, to make me authentic,

00:08:26.080 | to make me loving."

00:08:29.240 | That's the way you pray.

00:08:30.480 | It's real risky.

00:08:32.840 | Last night, just before we walked into the service, a band of us,

00:08:36.480 | several of us just gathered around in the choir room downstairs downtown where I

00:08:41.280 | preached this last night, and we said, and there were "mm-hmms"

00:08:45.080 | and "amens" all around as I said, "Lord, whatever it takes, death,

00:08:52.960 | loss of job, cancer, whatever it takes, take away my hypocrisy.

00:09:02.160 | Whatever it takes in this church, whatever it takes, do it because we want

00:09:08.840 | to be real.

00:09:09.720 | We want to be Christian.

00:09:10.840 | We want these words in Romans 12 to become reality.

00:09:14.720 | We don't just want to speak words and have love be in word only and not in deed

00:09:20.200 | and not in heart.

00:09:22.720 | So pray.

00:09:23.600 | That's number one.

00:09:24.520 | Pray as you read the Bible, "Do this in my life."

00:09:28.040 | Number two, look away to Jesus as you read the Bible.

00:09:33.560 | As you read Romans 12 and you hear, "Let love be without dissimulation,"

00:09:39.480 | that's the old King James word, or "Let love be without hypocrisy,"

00:09:44.640 | that's a good literal translation, "Let love be genuine," ESV.

00:09:49.040 | When you read that, say to yourself, "No way I'm going to pull that off.

00:09:54.680 | I'm a born hypocrite.

00:09:56.640 | I love the praise of other people.

00:09:58.160 | I know I'm not perfect.

00:09:59.080 | I'm always putting up fronts.

00:10:00.600 | I want to be a loving person, authentic.

00:10:02.240 | I don't want to play at love.

00:10:04.000 | Therefore, I look away from myself.

00:10:06.360 | I look away to Jesus.

00:10:09.080 | He was born and died to forgive all my hypocrisy.

00:10:13.240 | He modeled for me the perfectly transparent life.

00:10:16.600 | He has now taught me and given me a goal to aim at, and He is my satisfaction,

00:10:23.960 | my forgiver, my model, my treasure."

00:10:28.720 | When you look away to Jesus, that satisfaction that comes from Him is the

00:10:34.920 | ground and root by which you become free from hypocrisy.

00:10:40.280 | So that's number two, look away in faith to Jesus, not to yourself.

00:10:45.080 | Number three, slow down and meditate on these words.

00:10:50.680 | I know this is tough because on the one hand, you hear a message coming

00:10:54.880 | from this pulpit, "Read the Bible.

00:10:56.640 | Read the whole Bible.

00:10:58.080 | Get your Discipleship Journal reading plan and read the Bible all the way

00:11:01.560 | through in one year."

00:11:02.720 | Well, you're on a lickety-split pace to get through the Bible, and here I am

00:11:07.040 | telling you now, slow down and meditate on the first half of verse 9 of chapter 12.

00:11:14.080 | Now, what in the world are you supposed to do?

00:11:16.640 | Read through the Bible or meditate on verse 9?

00:11:18.880 | What do you want me to do?

00:11:20.720 | And the answer is both, and I don't know how.

00:11:25.840 | I just know I've got to read the Bible fast, I've got to read the Bible slow.

00:11:29.320 | Because if you don't read the Bible fast to get through it in a year or two,

00:11:33.560 | you can't get the big picture, you can't get the whole terrain.

00:11:36.640 | And yet, if you don't slow down, here's the analogy.

00:11:40.440 | This analogy has been with me ever since the first jumbo jet was made.

00:11:45.080 | You can remember that.

00:11:45.720 | Most of that's in your lifetime, right?

00:11:47.280 | The first jumbo jet with a big hump on the front, how can they do that?

00:11:50.040 | A two-decker plane, unbelievable.

00:11:52.760 | I remember that.

00:11:54.480 | So I picture this thing flies about 560 miles an hour, and it flies really high,

00:11:59.240 | you know, 37,000, 38,000 feet.

00:12:01.360 | And I pictured it flying over Florida and all these orange groves.

00:12:07.320 | And you look down and you could just, you could almost see the whole Florida,

00:12:11.880 | and there's an orange grove.

00:12:13.440 | And you say, "Wow, that's an amazing orange grove.

00:12:17.880 | Very nourishing.

00:12:20.040 | Really tastes good.

00:12:22.400 | Really gives me energy."

00:12:24.320 | Wrong, it doesn't.

00:12:25.480 | You just...

00:12:27.000 | And that's the way we read the Bibles.

00:12:28.560 | But it's good to see Florida.

00:12:30.360 | It really is.

00:12:31.720 | It's valuable to see Florida in the Bible.

00:12:35.000 | But if you never land that thing in Orlando, and don't go to Disney World,

00:12:40.640 | go to the orange grove and just start walking through the orange grove.

00:12:45.000 | Here's verse 9, first half of the verse, and you pause under the tree and you

00:12:49.160 | pick that one, and you look at it, that's a beautiful thing.

00:12:51.920 | "Let love be genuine."

00:12:55.880 | I wonder what that means.

00:13:00.640 | Would I love to be like that?

00:13:03.200 | I want to be like that.

00:13:05.320 | Holy Spirit, please, kill the disease of hypocrisy in my life.

00:13:11.800 | You got to slow down.

00:13:13.600 | You got to meditate.

00:13:14.600 | You got to ask, "What does it mean?

00:13:16.000 | How does it relate to my life?

00:13:17.440 | How does it relate to the other parts of Scripture?"

00:13:19.920 | And all the while praying, "Oh, make a difference.

00:13:22.600 | Make a difference in my life."

00:13:26.480 | So, those are my three guidelines, which I think are implied in chapter 15,

00:13:32.760 | verses 15 and 16.

00:13:34.840 | Word and spirit.

00:13:36.440 | Word, verse 15, spirit, verse 16 of chapter 15.

00:13:40.880 | We read the Bible, we pray for the spirit, we savor it, we linger over it,

00:13:45.680 | we look away to Jesus.

00:13:47.080 | The reason looking away to Jesus is so crucial is because the Holy Spirit,

00:13:50.760 | according to John 16, 14, is given to glorify Christ.

00:13:58.680 | So, if you read the Bible with view to doing it in your own strength,

00:14:01.760 | the Holy Spirit will keep His distance from you.

00:14:04.280 | If you read the Bible looking away to Jesus and saying, "Jesus,

00:14:08.000 | I want you to be magnified.

00:14:09.960 | I want you to be displayed in the kind of loving person I become," the Holy Spirit

00:14:14.080 | kicks in with power because He's there to magnify Jesus.

00:14:18.520 | - So powerful.

00:14:19.280 | That line stands out, "Lord, whatever it takes, death, the loss of a job,

00:14:24.840 | cancer, whatever it takes, Lord, take away my hypocrisy."

00:14:30.680 | Wow.

00:14:31.840 | What a bold prayer.

00:14:33.560 | This clip was taken from one of the 225 Roman sermons of Pastor John in a

00:14:38.560 | sermon titled, "Let Love Be Genuine," preached on November 21st, 2004.

00:14:42.800 | It came in from a podcast listener named Daniel.

00:14:45.400 | Now, as you listen to Piper's sermon, send us the clips you find.

00:14:48.840 | If you've got a good one, email me.

00:14:50.040 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip

00:14:53.400 | happens in the audio, and tell me how it impacted you.

00:14:56.640 | By the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at

00:14:59.400 | askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:15:02.080 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:15:06.880 | God is always enough for us because He is always self-sufficient.

00:15:11.280 | It's a wonderful and worshipful theme that we are going to press into as we

00:15:15.360 | close the week out.

00:15:16.520 | Don't miss it.

00:15:17.600 | We can't hear this enough, God's self-sufficiency and what that means

00:15:21.160 | for our happiness in Him.

00:15:23.680 | That's up next time.

00:15:24.280 | I'm your host, Tommy Ranke.

00:15:25.040 | We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John for that on Friday.

00:15:27.920 | We'll see you then.

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How Can I Make Daily Bible Reading Authentic?

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