I was delighted to find this email question in the inbox because I don't think anyone has asked it before. I may be wrong. Maybe I missed it. But today's question comes from a podcast listener named Sue. Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for this podcast. My question is, what is your favorite hymn and why is it your favorite?

Well, I love to sing. And especially with God's people. On the Lord's Day, gathered for worship in an atmosphere of serious joy and carried along by the Holy Spirit with well-expressed truth about the greatness and the beauty and excellence of all that God is for us in Christ. I believe that when this comes from the heart of hundreds of people or dozens of people or thousands of people, when it comes from the heart of a united, humble, holiness-pursuing, justice-pursuing, love-pursuing people, God delights in this sound with all His heart.

During my 33 years of pastoring Bethlehem Baptist Church, many of the highest and the sweetest moments of my life were spent standing at the front pew singing with all my heart as the crescendo of the people's praise broke over my head from behind like a wave of joy and hope.

God ministered to me in those moments, ministered to my marriage in those moments, ministered to my relationships more deeply at those times, I believe, than any other time I'm aware of. That's saying a lot, and I'm saying it carefully. Things happened spiritually in my heart that kept me in the ministry, kept me in marriage, kept me fathering, kept me in friendships.

Things happened spiritually in my heart concerning my relation to God and to my wife and other people, the ripple effects of which I will never fully know until heaven. But they were profound, and on many Sundays, they were deeply needed. So I do not take corporate singing of hymns in worship to Christ lightly, and I do not take the words of songs lightly, or the suitableness of the tunes to fit the words lightly, or the blood earnestness and the vertical radicalness of the atmosphere of the service as the people go hard after God, or the spiritual demeanor of the leaders who can be wonderfully helpful or very distracting, or the preciousness of the fellowship in song.

I can remember—here's an element of the horizontal nature of vertical focus—I can remember moments when my heart was flat and next to me was a precious comrade in ministry. I'm remembering, for example, Tom Stellar in particular, who served with me all my ministry and still serving. Here he stands with his eyes closed and his hands lifted high in praise while I'm feeling flat, and oh, how this regularly, profoundly ministered to me, stirred me, awakened me, rebuked me, drew me up to God.

There's a dimension to the horizontal reality of radically vertical worship that is incomparable. And then there's nothing like the act of preaching, expository exaltation—in other words, preaching is worship—preaching, coming on the wings of such praises. Preaching to a people in that kind of God-saturated hour is a wonderful thing.

There's just nothing like it. So instead of my favorite hymn, since I don't know what it is, I will mention one of my favorites. What qualifies a hymn to be in this group is the mingling of sorrow and joy—these are my criteria for what's in my favorite group—the mingling of sorrow and joy, brokenness and hope, divine tenderness and sovereign majesty, exalted focus and intimate personal expression, beautiful poetry, a tune that fits all those things in both seriousness of emotion and exaltation of hope.

And I think I would put into that category, "It is well with my soul, a mighty fortress, oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus, come thou fount, my song is love unknown, and can it be, crowned with many crowns, be thou my vision?" And the list, frankly, would get very long if I kept going.

There are many stunningly powerful and great hymns that accomplish all those things for me. But the one that I want to mention is "If thou but suffer God to guide thee," which you've probably never heard of. "If thou but suffer God to guide thee." And here's the catch. This is a translation of the German hymn by Georg Neumark, 1641, "Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten." And it has seven verses in the original, and no modern English hymnal that I'm aware of has all seven verses.

Some have tried to modernize the song and give it—it's awful, it's awful what they do to Catherine Winkworth's translation, and yet they think they can do better with the German than her when they didn't even know German. But let me give you a flavor of Georg Neumark's own tune, because he wrote the tune and he wrote the words.

It's in a minor key, which is where I think songs of this content need to be. And when sung robustly, which minor songs can be sung by a congregation that sees and loves this truth, it has a bulwark-like effect of strength and hope. That's the way it sounds. And I love the hymn because of all the reasons given above, and because I discovered it when I was living in Germany, and it became—this is why it's so near the top—it became, along with "God Moves in a Mysterious Way," the weapon of hope in those difficult years.

I love it because the words express hope in the worst of times because of an absolutely sovereign and merciful God. So I'm going to read it and then be done. So I'll just read the English so that you can get the flavor. I could never find the translation of verse 5, so I translated verse 5 in this 7, because I have the 7 German right here in front of me on page 298 of my German songbook.

"If thou but suffer God to guide thee, And hope in him through all thy ways, He'll give thee strength whate'er betide thee, And bear thee through the evil days. Who trusts in God's unchanging love, Builds on a rock that naught can move? What can these anxious cares avail thee, These never-ceasing moans and sighs?

What can it help if thou bewail thee, Or each dark moment as it flies? Our cross and trials do but press The heavier for our bitterness. Only be still and wait his leisure, In cheerful hope with heart content, To take whate'er thy Father's pleasure And his discerning love has sent.

Nor doubt our inmost wants are known To him who chose us for his own. He knows the time for joy, And truly will send it when he sees it meet, When he has tried and purged thee duly, And finds thee free from all deceit. He comes to thee all unaware, And makes thee own his loving care.

Think not that God has thee forsaken, When sorrow crowns your acts of care, Nor that he sleeps and cannot waken, While evil prospers everywhere. Each recompense will have its hour; God sets the times with love and power. All are alike before the highest. 'Tis easy to our God we know to raise thee up, Though low thou liest to make the rich man poor and low.

True wonders still by him are wrought, Who setteth up and brings to naught. Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving; So do thine own part faithfully, And trust his word, though undeserving. Thou yet shalt find it true for thee, God never yet forsook at need the soul that trusted him indeed.

Amen. Amen. That's beautiful. What a great find, Pastor John. Thanks for sharing it with us on the podcast. And thank you, Sue, for that great question. Of course, we celebrate Christmas coming up on Sunday and bound up with the Christmas narrative are a lot of beautiful hymns to sing.

But the story of Christ's birth brings with it a reminder of his whole life and all of his works. And that means it is also a season for us to reflect on his sacrifice. And on Friday, we will do that very thing as we look at the theme of sacrifice throughout the Bible and to see once again just how this major theme in God's grand storyline is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.

Until then, you can find our audio feeds in our episode archive, and you can reach our inbox all through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Friday. (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music) (Music)