(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Ask Pastor John podcast. We're back with guest Paul David Tripp, the author of the book, "Awe, Why It Matters "for Everything We Think, Say, and Do." So this week we're talking about awe and how it really does relate to everything in life, specifically to our spiritual growth and our Bible intake, our ministry aims, and even to our news consumption, our weight loss attempts, our anxieties, our parenting methods, and our expectations for marriage and romantic love.

We must be seduced by God, as you said on Monday. He must capture our hearts. This has ramifications for finding purpose and meaning in our lives, as we saw earlier. This is essential for getting honest about weight loss and the care of our bodies, as we saw yesterday. Today we turn now to talk about how to engender awe in God, in others, as a leading aim of our ministry labors.

Paul, how has your own ministry been shaped by this reality and this calling? - I love Psalm 145. I say in the book that Psalm 145 changed my life and changed my ministry, because one day reading through Psalm 145, I all of a sudden got my calling. I think for the first time, I understood what I had been called to do.

And it's just a phrase that says, "One generation shall commend your works to another." And I thought, there it is. My job is to be used of God through the vehicle of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the content of scripture, to give people back their awe of God again, so that their hearts are now ruled by the awe of God.

So that claim on their hearts then begins to redirect everything in their lives. Materialism isn't first a money problem. Materialism is an awe problem. If I'm not in awe of God, it's very, very possible for me to be in awe of physical things and spin myself into debt as a result.

Disobedience is not first a law problem. It's an awe problem that leads to a law problem. I mean, look at the 10 commandments. The first commands are about worship, because if you don't keep those commands, you won't be keeping the ones that follow. And so in giving people their awe back again through the preaching of God's word, I give them the gift of a satisfied heart, which then gives them strength against the temptation that would say, "Here's where satisfaction could be found." - So good, yeah.

This single ministry aim of helping give people their awe in God again, it really simplifies a lot of our discipleship and parenting, our preaching, our musical worship, our counseling, all of it. But this really must begin first in our own hearts, though. - Sure, and even your motivation as a minister.

I mean, look, if you're not in ministry with a heart that's satisfied in God's glory, then you'll probably ask your ministry to give you identity, meaning, and purpose, and inner sense of well-being. I have to say this, 'cause I've been in pastoral ministry for many, many years. A ministry is a miserable place to find your identity.

It just is. And so I need to be freed from the bondage for looking to have this all capacity satisfied by creation just as much as anybody else in my ministry does. - Yes. So when Paul Tripp wants to recapture his own awe of God, or when you want God to once again capture your heart, how do you do it?

Where do you go? - Let the Bible do it for you. I think it's important to take people to those mind-numbing, heart-engaging, knee-weakening passages like Isaiah 40, where the language, human language, is stretched to its furthest elasticity to try to capture the glory of God. I mean, think of the physical picture of God holding the waters of the universe in the hollow of his hand.

Think of the majesty of that. I mean, how much liquid could you hold in your hand, the palm of your hand, without it spilling? That's just one illustration of the stunning glory of God. Or the end of Job, where God has that, "Where were you when the foundations of creation "were laid," conversation with Job, and displays his splendor.

Or Ephesians 1, where the redeeming plan of God throughout the ages is laid bare for us. We need those passages. We need to meditate in those passages. We need to go back to those passages again and again. And they do a much better job of capturing God's splendor than I would ever do.

- Amen, yes. So speak to ministers now. This is simplifying. It is also incredibly daunting. They labor to inspire awe in others. This is what you call in the book the grand agenda of all ministry. I love that. Speak to ministers who are lost in the details, or they're buried in criticism, or they simply feel burned out from years of pouring their lives out.

How would you counsel ministers here? - I think in the press of the struggles, trials, pressures, and discourages of ministry, there is counsel to be found for us in Psalm 27. Psalm 27 is written in one of two of the most tragic experiences. Either David was fleeing from Saul and gross injustice, or fleeing from his son Absalom, who wanted his throne, a terrible family betrayal.

And in the midst of that, he says, "One thing I desire, that I could dwell "in the house of the Lord "and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord." Now, why does he say that? Because he understands there's something that exists in the universe, someone that exists in the universe, who's way more glorious and way more beautiful than any ugly thing you will face in your ministry.

And you will only understand the struggles of ministry properly when you look at them through the stunning beauty, awesome glory of the Lord. Now, here's what that means. It means you need to have a habit of getting up every morning as a pastor and gazing upon the beauty of the Lord.

Go to one of those passages, let your heart take that in. Rest in that. And why can you rest in that? Because what the Bible teaches us is all that God is in his glory, he is for us by grace. He has unleashed his glory on us by grace.

So that beauty not only tells me who God is, it redefines me as one of God's children. And then, now you're ready to go out and do your ministry, but now not doing it hoping for greater acceptance and greater success. Now you go out with your heart satisfied and you're free to give what has filled your heart to others.

- Finally, what would you say to a pastor who knows that they should preach awe in God, but they don't feel it privately? Is the public preaching of God's awesomeness disingenuous when a minister doesn't experience that awe privately? - I don't think there's ever a moment in preaching where you do not preach truth as a poor example of truth.

I mean, what pastor has ever preached a passage saying to himself, "I perfectly example this"? No one. And so, I'm always a broken tool I love what it says in 2 Corinthians 4 that we are cracked vessels so that the light of God's glory shows through. I mean, that's all of us.

And so I get up, I confess my inadequacy, I confess my inconsistency, and I luxuriate in God's forgiveness and in the gospel irrationality that he can actually use someone like me to declare his glory. - Yeah, very good. Thank you, Paul. We're gonna return tomorrow and transition to talk about awe and parenting.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with guest Paul Tripp. We'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)