Today I want to bring you a quote from a sermon by John Piper: The Present Effects of Trembling at the Wrath of God. Thanks to the wonders of the new Desiring God website, you can watch, read, or listen to the full sermon there.
This quote expresses the results of a view of God that is balanced between fear and joy. Too many Christians veer into one or the other extreme. Sometimes we see only the kindness of God and imagine that he is some kind of sugar daddy in the sky who is all sweetness and apple pie. Other times we see only His severity and become terrified of Him as as though He was a stern disapproving Father about to beat us for no reason. The truth is, God wants us to “note then the kindness and the severity of God” (Rom 11:22).
Piper’s description is just fantastic and he goes on to mention how parents should insure that their children learn to both fear (respect) and love their parents. This, like all Piper, is worthy of a careful read or listen.
Fear and Trembling Transforms Corporate Worship
The first thing we should say is that this Christian fear and trembling should be felt especially in our worship services. Corporate worship is the experience of coming corporately and consciously before the face of God. Here, if anywhere in the Christian life, there will be a proper fear and trembling. Consider how the Bible connects worship and the fear of the Lord.
Psalm 96:9, “Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!” Revelation 14:7, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” Revelation 15:4, “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
But now here is a great fear-transforming reality, and it explains why Christians sing with joy in worship, and Muslims don’t. Fear and trembling are not because God is our enemy but because he saved us from his wrath through Christ, and now we stand on the brink of the Grand Canyon of his holiness and justice and grace and wrath with unspeakable wonder, knees wobbling and hands trembling, but overcome with worship at the depth of his majesty, not with worry that we might fall in.
Listen to the way the Bible says it so paradoxically, and yet, all true saints know what these words mean. Psalm 2:11, “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” This fear is shot through with joy. Isaiah 11:3, “And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” This fear is full of delight. Nehemiah 1:11, “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer . . . of your servants who delight to fear your name.” This fear is what the saints delight to experience.
Those who have seen and savored the holiness of God and justice and wrath and grace of God, can never again trivialize worship. It is so sad when someone hears a message like this and then comes up and says, “Don’t you think we can have fun in worship?” What is sad about that response is that their heart is so small that the only alternative they can think of to fear is fun. I don’t like to use the word “fun” for what we do in worship—or in ministry for that matter. It is a sad commentary on the superficial condition of our times that one of the most common things said about good experience in ministry and worship is that “we are having fun.”
The point is not that Christians can’t be light-hearted. You are probably sick if you can’t be light hearted. The point is, there is time and season for everything under the sun. And something should happen in corporate worship, before the face of the infinitely holy God, that calls forth a different vocabulary than what you experience at the amusement park.
We are Christian Hedonists. We pursue joy with all our might, because we believe that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And Christian Hedonists can smell the flames of hell. Christian Hedonists tremble still at the ledge from which we were snatched. Christian Hedonists see those who are toppling toward wrath as people who are just like us, only not yet snatched by grace alone from the ledge. Christian Hedonists feel a potential for joy—infinitely serious joy—in the God of holiness and wrath and grace that is so great it would break our heart if God did not give us a divine ability to bear the weight of our happiness without being crushed by it . . . .
By John Piper.
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