(upbeat music) - Several of our most astute Ask Pastor John podcast listeners picked up on your podcast reference in the John MacArthur episode, episode 214. David, one such astute listener, asks this. I'm curious to know what other podcasts you subscribe to using your Downcast app. So Pastor John, what podcasts do you listen to?

- Okay, so I just got out my phone here. Let me get it. And I click on the app called Downcast. And I'll read you my top, here's at the top. These are the ones that are unplayed. 'Cause that's what comes first in the list. Okay, there's albertmuller.com in the briefing.

Ask Pastor John. (laughing) No, I don't listen to it very often, but sometimes I check and see how you do these things. The next one is Bethlehem Baptist Sermons. That's Jason, my successor, and I love to listen to Jason preach. The next one is Brookhills Audio. So that's David Platt's sermons.

The next one is Cannon Wired. That's sermons from Doug Wilson. The next one is Sinclair B. Ferguson Sermon Audio.com. The next one is the Gospel Coalition podcast. The next one is Grace to You, pulpit podcast. That's John MacArthur. The next one is Poem of the Day. They just put up a different poem every day from poetry.com or wherever it comes from to give me a taste of poetry whenever I choose to listen to those.

The next one is Renewing Your Mind with R.C. Sproul. The next one is sermons, University Reform Church of Lansing. That's Kevin DeYoung. And then comes Theology Refresh from Desiring God. Then comes Truth for Life broadcast, Alistair Begg. And here's the ones that are empty. C.S. Lewis Review podcast. They hardly ever put anything up, but they did for a while.

Carl F. Henry Center for Theological, it's a dot, dot, dot, I can't even finish, but it's a podcast from Trinity from the Carl F. H. Henry Center. Desiring God Authors Online is there. Let's see, that's probably enough. The rest of them are kind of really weird poetry things that never get posted to anymore.

So those are the ones that are there, but here's something just as important. I follow about 100 people on Twitter. One of my goals in following people on Twitter is that I try to choose enough people who are discerning that they are constantly feeding me the best articles, audio, video.

And so when I find a tweet, like say somebody says, "Don Carson on the relationship "between the Great Commission and the Second Coming." Okay, I say, "Oh, I wanna hear what Don has to say "about that, 'cause cross-conference is coming up." And so I email myself that tweet. 'Cause right then, I don't have time.

You know, I'm just going somewhere or doing something, I don't have time to listen to this now. So I click and I email myself that tweet, and later, when I have time, and if I have time, I don't watch all of them, I'll just click through to that and watch it.

So Twitter is as important to me as a podcast feeder, because it's broader, and I can't choose everything that's out there. And it would be important for people to know how I do this, 'cause I don't have a lot of time to listen to stuff. I run outside three mornings a week.

So that's about, given the run and the cool down, that's about a 45-minute block of time. So I can listen to three times 45 minutes, usually in a week, just by jogging. Then on the off days, I might do some calisthenics or something that don't take as much time, and listen to a 10-minute something or other in my exercise time.

Now, what's the point of all this? I tried to think through, why do I do this? Isn't this a waste of time? Aren't you being jerked around by the media? Here's my three answers. Number one, I need reminders of what I know and have forgotten about God and the Bible.

Because Peter said, Peter said in 2 Peter 1:13, "I think it is right, as long as I'm in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder." Well, amen, Peter. John Piper leaks, you know? He just forgets. And I need for a preacher, and it can be any preacher, to tell me what I know, and to tell me what I know with some sense of reality and authenticity.

And that leads to number two. I need real, live people speaking to me about their experience with God. This is what the Psalms are, aren't they? I mean, the Psalms say things like, "Whom have I in heaven but you? There is nothing on earth I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart." That's a man talking to me about his walk with God.

And I'm listening to him, and I'm saying, "Yes, yes, please, God, I want that." So I want people to do that for me. I wanna listen to pastors who've walked with God. I don't want them only to tell me what they've seen. I want them to tell me what they're savoring.

Talk to me about what you're experiencing of God, because I get stirred up that way, and I wanna join you in that experience. So that's my second incentive in going after some of these videos and audios. And the third thing is, I need to learn. Second Peter also says, "Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus." And if you say to me, "Well, read a book, you know, and you'll learn." I say, "Well, I can't read while I'm jogging, thank you very much, and I can't read while I'm driving." So I'm basically, I'm trying to obey Ephesians 5:16, right?

Redeem the time for the days are evil. Redeem the kairos for the days of evil. And redeem there is purchase it, grab it, don't waste it. God has given us technology as a way of redeeming time. And isn't it sad, Tony, that so many have turned it into a time waster?

So my closing exhortation to myself and to everybody is, use your phone or your iPod or whatever you got, use it as a time redeemer, not a time waster. - Amen, well, it sounds like I need to get to work and record some new authors on the line podcast for your playlist.

Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org and visit us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.

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