Let God’s Word Dwell in You Richly This Year
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, 2022 has begun, and the start of a new year
00:00:07.800 | is always a great time to consider our habits,
00:00:10.640 | specifically which new habits we wanna start.
00:00:13.960 | And of course, it's a great time to ask,
00:00:15.360 | how can God's word abide in me more deeply?
00:00:20.360 | What can I do?
00:00:22.280 | How can I improve here?
00:00:24.600 | And the answer, or one of the answers,
00:00:26.800 | is found in a sermon clip
00:00:28.200 | taken from John Piper's sermon,
00:00:30.160 | If My Words Abide in You, a sermon title,
00:00:33.760 | taken from Jesus's phrase in John 15, seven.
00:00:37.560 | The sermon was preached on January 4, 2009,
00:00:40.640 | 13 years ago yesterday.
00:00:43.040 | It has the new year in view, actually,
00:00:45.200 | as you will hear in a moment
00:00:46.920 | as we jump into the end of that 2009 sermon.
00:00:51.280 | Here's Pastor John now,
00:00:52.640 | and he is here talking about Bible holsters.
00:00:55.640 | Yeah, like a holster for your Bible.
00:00:57.960 | It'll make sense in a second.
00:00:59.240 | Have a listen.
00:01:00.080 | - The Holy Spirit awakens through the word,
00:01:05.480 | transforms through the word.
00:01:08.400 | 1 Peter 1, 23,
00:01:10.720 | born again by the Spirit through the living and abiding word.
00:01:14.880 | John 17, 17, sanctify them in the truth.
00:01:20.360 | Your word is truth.
00:01:22.080 | So new birth and sanctification are the work of God,
00:01:27.000 | not any other way than by the word.
00:01:31.160 | The word is huge.
00:01:37.560 | So you need to ask, well, how then does it work?
00:01:43.200 | This is the word.
00:01:45.760 | So, gonna make a little harness,
00:01:51.080 | sort of like a pistol, the FBI.
00:01:55.400 | Gonna wear this all day on my heart,
00:01:58.640 | and I'm gonna walk around.
00:02:01.320 | Will God sanctify this to me
00:02:07.520 | and transform me because I have, I'm carrying it here?
00:02:12.520 | What's the answer?
00:02:14.760 | The answer is no.
00:02:18.000 | The answer is no.
00:02:20.520 | Sorry about that.
00:02:21.480 | We'll talk afterwards.
00:02:23.840 | You probably have a really good idea in your head
00:02:25.600 | what you meant.
00:02:26.440 | The answer is no,
00:02:29.240 | because God created you with a brain.
00:02:36.120 | He didn't have to.
00:02:39.120 | He created you with a consciousness.
00:02:42.160 | He created you with a will and emotions and thought.
00:02:46.360 | And the way he ordains for Christ to be magnified
00:02:50.520 | through his word is for there to be a connection created
00:02:54.960 | with these words and this brain,
00:02:56.760 | and then this will and this heart.
00:02:59.640 | If you just try to do this and never read it,
00:03:05.160 | never read it, so there's no connection
00:03:07.560 | between the meaning of these words and your brain,
00:03:09.680 | it has zero effect in your life.
00:03:12.040 | Meditate on the law of the Lord day and night
00:03:19.200 | is because a connection is established.
00:03:22.960 | And by the connection of the meaning of God
00:03:26.320 | in his holy word and my construction of that meaning
00:03:29.680 | in my brain and its effect on my will and my heart,
00:03:33.560 | I'm changed by the Holy Spirit's using all that
00:03:37.600 | seemingly natural process for our change.
00:03:46.080 | So my answer to what's all this got to do
00:03:51.080 | with memorizing the scripture is this.
00:03:53.480 | When we memorize the scripture,
00:03:56.720 | we make that connection between this and this and this
00:04:03.080 | more constant, more deep, and more transforming.
00:04:14.080 | I'll venture this, realistically, nothing can replace it.
00:04:19.080 | Nothing can replace it, Bible memory,
00:04:28.040 | in doing what it was designed to do,
00:04:34.080 | in forging a connection between this and this and this.
00:04:40.840 | This and this and this.
00:04:44.720 | Closing testimony from Noel and me.
00:04:52.520 | On December 21st, we celebrated
00:04:56.080 | our 40th wedding anniversary.
00:04:58.320 | We went away for two days and among other things,
00:05:02.320 | we read, this is funny, Psalm 40
00:05:09.640 | and Isaiah 40.
00:05:11.760 | We talked.
00:05:14.280 | We talked about the year and the years.
00:05:18.240 | So the anniversaries are four, right?
00:05:20.640 | Past and future, taking stock,
00:05:23.800 | regretting, repenting, resolving.
00:05:26.880 | And we thought back how many times we had sat at a lunch,
00:05:32.800 | say at Eddington's or Famous Dave's or Leanne's,
00:05:38.800 | or Leanne Chin or Jimmy John's, this is our style.
00:05:43.800 | How many times we did our date lunch on Monday
00:05:49.760 | and we sat across from each other
00:05:51.680 | and rehearsed for a half an hour the pain of the years
00:05:56.680 | and the reasons for discouragement now
00:06:00.560 | and never once quoted any scripture at all.
00:06:08.040 | And then we read in Psalm 40, verse five
00:06:13.040 | and we paused and we said, we've never done this before.
00:06:17.040 | We are going to make a verse, our year marriage verse.
00:06:22.040 | We've never had a year, if we have, I've forgotten it.
00:06:25.560 | A year marriage verse.
00:06:29.040 | Psalm 40, verse five.
00:06:32.440 | We're working on memorizing it and for some reason,
00:06:35.560 | I'm finding it a tough verse to memorize.
00:06:38.480 | You have multiplied, O Lord, my God,
00:06:41.280 | your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us.
00:06:45.440 | None can compare with you.
00:06:47.840 | I will proclaim and tell of them,
00:06:51.480 | when, yet when I tell of, thank you.
00:06:58.440 | Say it again.
00:07:00.800 | Yet they are more than can be told.
00:07:05.280 | Now, here's the relevance.
00:07:07.840 | The number of the wondrous deeds of God is uncountable.
00:07:14.680 | The number of his thoughts toward our marriage,
00:07:17.880 | his thoughts as our father toward us,
00:07:21.040 | our children, our grandchildren, our marriage,
00:07:23.520 | the number of those thoughts is beyond counting.
00:07:26.800 | And as a husband, now this is a little tiny exhortation
00:07:33.600 | here to the men, I believe those lunchtimes
00:07:37.200 | of God's silence is my fault.
00:07:40.840 | The number one responsibility of a husband
00:07:46.880 | is to lead with the word of God.
00:07:49.680 | And when a thousand reasons are being accumulated
00:07:53.520 | and moped over for why we are sad,
00:07:57.880 | it's my job to rise and call down
00:08:01.240 | some of the wondrous deeds of God,
00:08:03.160 | some of the thoughts of God and proclaim them
00:08:05.760 | and tell of them.
00:08:07.360 | That's what we decided we would do.
00:08:13.240 | So you can ask us in June or July,
00:08:17.400 | how's Psalm 40 verse five going?
00:08:19.840 | Because I went to my little Apple computer
00:08:23.200 | and I entered it as a daily reminder
00:08:25.960 | for every Monday at 11 a.m.
00:08:28.680 | In the year.
00:08:32.320 | You will sink folks, you'll sink in your marriage,
00:08:37.320 | you'll sink in your parenting,
00:08:39.120 | you'll sink in your singleness,
00:08:40.600 | you'll sink in your studies if you're a student,
00:08:42.960 | you will sink if you only listen to the voices
00:08:46.880 | of the circumstances that are giving you problems.
00:08:49.800 | 'Cause they speak so loud
00:08:51.960 | and they have nothing good to say.
00:08:53.680 | And God has, this is a very thick book.
00:08:59.720 | (audience laughing)
00:09:03.040 | He has so many wondrous deeds
00:09:05.400 | and so many thoughts towards his children,
00:09:08.680 | hundreds and hundreds of thoughts towards his children.
00:09:13.320 | I will proclaim and tell of them,
00:09:15.720 | yet they are more than can be told.
00:09:18.640 | Well, that's my testimony and our marriage testimony.
00:09:29.480 | May the Lord make his word dwell richly this year.
00:09:34.480 | - So good, hearing Noel's voice in this clip
00:09:38.120 | is just priceless, I love that.
00:09:40.000 | This one was sent in from Andrew,
00:09:42.240 | a listener in Salt Lake City.
00:09:43.520 | He writes, quote, "I love this clip
00:09:45.280 | "as it ties together both scripture, memory, and meditation
00:09:48.220 | "and it ties together leading and encouraging your wife
00:09:51.160 | "as a husband, amen."
00:09:52.800 | Thank you, Andrew.
00:09:53.800 | And it also ties in the new year too,
00:09:55.480 | as you heard there at the very end.
00:09:57.340 | So good, this sermon is titled,
00:09:59.700 | "If My Words Abide in You,"
00:10:01.440 | Jesus' phrase from John 15, seven.
00:10:04.320 | It was preached 13 years ago yesterday, on January 4, 2009.
00:10:09.240 | The full sermon is on DesiringGod's site, as always.
00:10:12.480 | Thanks for listening.
00:10:14.640 | Most of our clips are now crowdsourced.
00:10:16.760 | You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons stand out to you
00:10:19.400 | and we share that clip with the APJ audience.
00:10:21.680 | If you've got one, email me.
00:10:23.020 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title,
00:10:25.880 | and the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio
00:10:28.360 | and tell me how it impacted you.
00:10:29.840 | Put the word clip in the subject line of an email
00:10:31.800 | and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:35.440 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:39.100 | Well, why does God hide himself from believers?
00:10:46.400 | It's a question we've touched on on the podcast,
00:10:49.580 | but we need to address it head on.
00:10:52.140 | Why does God hide himself from believers?
00:10:54.400 | We're gonna ask that question next time
00:10:56.240 | when Pastor John is back in studio with me on Friday.
00:10:59.320 | We'll see you then.
00:11:00.280 | (upbeat music)
00:11:02.860 | (upbeat music)
00:11:05.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]