Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / What Is ‘White-Hot Worship’?

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What Is ‘White-Hot Worship’? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: White hot worship is the topic white hot worship? What
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  Speaker 1: is it? Pastor John likes to use the phrase, and
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  Speaker 1: for those of you from a certain charismatic background, that
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  Speaker 1: phrase is loaded with a lot of unintended baggage, things
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  Speaker 1: that Pastor John does not intend by the phrase white
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  Speaker 1: hot worship. So what is it? Lisa asks the question today,
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John, Hello, and thank you for this podcast. I'm
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  Speaker 1: currently listening to your audiobook Reading the Bible, Supernaturally wonderful book.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for it. Dozens and dozens of times throughout
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  Speaker 1: the book you mentioned white hot worship. When I hear
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  Speaker 1: the phrase, certain images come to my mind. I come
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  Speaker 1: from a Pentecostal background where this was the focus every
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  Speaker 1: Sunday morning, expressed with jumping up and down, screaming, running around,
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  Speaker 1: waving flags, twitching, falling to the ground, shaking, making unnatural sounds,
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  Speaker 1: speaking in tongues and yes, feeling for angels, and electricity
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  Speaker 1: in the atmosphere. This is how thousands of us have
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  Speaker 1: always understood intense worship. And when you saw someone going crazy,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed like they were deep in the spirit worshiping intensely.
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  Speaker 1: Now I have left that mindset and practice behind and
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  Speaker 1: I know that this is not at all what worship
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  Speaker 1: is about. Can you explain what you mean by white
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  Speaker 1: hot worship for those of us coming from this type
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  Speaker 1: of background? And thank you for always making scripture clear.
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  Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Lisa for reading the book about reading
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  Speaker 2: the Bible supernaturally. I think your question is a very
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  Speaker 2: very important one flowing from that book and gives me
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  Speaker 2: a chance to make some important distinctions. You're right, the
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  Speaker 2: phrase white hot occurs in that book twenty seven times.
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  Speaker 2: I counted them, and it's important that I give you
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  Speaker 2: a couple examples because the context matters in the way
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  Speaker 2: I think about that phrase. Page one oh two. I
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  Speaker 2: have proposed that our ultimate goal in reading the Bible,
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  Speaker 2: according to the Bible itself, is that God's infinite worth
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  Speaker 2: and beauty would be exalted in the everlasting, white hot
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  Speaker 2: worship of the blood bought Bride of Christ from every
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  Speaker 2: people and language and tribe and nation. So notice the
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  Speaker 2: phrase ultimate goal, page one oh four. God created human
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  Speaker 2: emotion for the ultimate purpose of white hot worship of
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  Speaker 2: His worth and beauty. In this ultimate experience, we will
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  Speaker 2: be supremely satisfied, and He will be supremely glorified. Page
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  Speaker 2: one fifty eight. The cosmos will reach its final purpose
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  Speaker 2: when the saints enjoy God in it and through it
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  Speaker 2: and over it with white hot admiration for the Creator
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  Speaker 2: and the Redeemer. One more, page two twenty six. Seeing
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  Speaker 2: and savoring Christ is the key to transformation that pairs
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  Speaker 2: the bride for her destiny of white hot worship, moving
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  Speaker 2: ever closer to the white hot intensity. We will know
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  Speaker 2: when we see face to face and know even as
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  Speaker 2: we are known. So the main reason I read all
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  Speaker 2: those quotes is to give the context that my emphasis
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  Speaker 2: on white hot worship is when it reaches its fullest
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  Speaker 2: experience in the age to come. For now, in this
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  Speaker 2: age we see in a glass darkly. Then we see
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  Speaker 2: face to face. Now we know in part. Then we
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  Speaker 2: will know fully even as we are fully known. So
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  Speaker 2: for now our worship is often frustratingly inadequate to what
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  Speaker 2: we know He deserves. But when we have our new minds,
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  Speaker 2: our new hearts, our new bodies, our new emotions, then
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  Speaker 2: the worship will be as it ought to be. There
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  Speaker 2: are at least three reasons why I use the phrase
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  Speaker 2: white hot to describe our final aim in worship. First,
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  Speaker 2: simply to emphasize the fact that authentic worship is in
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  Speaker 2: fact a matter of the emotions as well as the intellect.
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  Speaker 2: Thinking right thoughts about God is not in itself worship.
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  Speaker 2: Feeling intense emotions that are not rooted in a true
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  Speaker 2: sight of the way God really is is also not
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  Speaker 2: true worship. We worship in spirit and truth. We worship
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  Speaker 2: with lips and heart. So that's the first reason to
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  Speaker 2: stress the emotional reality that worship includes. Second, I use
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  Speaker 2: the phrase white hot to emphasize the fact that a
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  Speaker 2: lack of earth earnestness, or a lack of intensity or
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  Speaker 2: a lack of zeal is a detraction from the beauty
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  Speaker 2: and worth of God. He is infinitely worthy of our
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  Speaker 2: fullest responsiveness from mind and heart. White heart calls attention
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  Speaker 2: to the full, intense engagement of our emotions as we
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  Speaker 2: respond to Him with the joy of admiration. And the
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  Speaker 2: third reason for using the term white hot is to
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  Speaker 2: try to capture what the Bible itself is getting at
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  Speaker 2: when it says, for example, do not be slothful in zeal,
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  Speaker 2: be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. That's Romans twelve eleven.
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  Speaker 2: That phrase be fervent literally means boil. It's the word
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  Speaker 2: for boil, simple, straightforward, boil in the spirit. Now, my
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  Speaker 2: phrase white hot is an effort to capture the meaning
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  Speaker 2: of boil boil in the spirit or Matthew twenty four
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  Speaker 2: to twelve warns about a time when lawlessness will be
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  Speaker 2: increased and the love of many will grow cold. So
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  Speaker 2: the Bible itself puts our love on the scale of
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  Speaker 2: hot and cold, and warns about cold and bleeds for hot,
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  Speaker 2: like Revelation three sixteen. Because you are lukewarm and neither
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  Speaker 2: hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
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  Speaker 2: And surely Jesus is getting at the same thing when
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  Speaker 2: he sums up all of godworld living with the great commandment,
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  Speaker 2: you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul,
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  Speaker 2: all your heart, all your mind. Matthew twenty two thirty seven.
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  Speaker 2: I think these all's all your heart mean nothing less
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  Speaker 2: than a white hot engagement of the heart with God. Now,
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  Speaker 2: Lisa wants to know what the difference is between my
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  Speaker 2: meaning of white hot worship and her past experience of
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  Speaker 2: people jumping up and down, screaming, running around, waving flags, twitching,
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  Speaker 2: falling on the ground, shaking, making unnatural sounds, speaking in tongues,
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  Speaker 2: and yes, feeling for angels and electricity in the atmosphere.
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  Speaker 2: Close quote. Now, my first response is to point out
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  Speaker 2: that the actions of the body are no sure sign
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  Speaker 2: of any intensity in the heart. That's a big mistake
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  Speaker 2: people make that if the body can somehow feel a
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  Speaker 2: certain thing physically, that the spirit is therefore more engaged
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  Speaker 2: with spiritual intensity. Yes, is not true. There is no
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  Speaker 2: necessary correlation between what the body does and what the spirit.
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  Speaker 2: Surely the body is going to be affected, but the
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  Speaker 2: body can do many things that are peculiar without it
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  Speaker 2: being any sure sign of a spiritual reality. Second thing
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  Speaker 2: I would observe is that the movements of the emotions
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  Speaker 2: themselves are no sure sign that God is being worshiped.
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  Speaker 2: For the emotions to have spiritual significance, they have to
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  Speaker 2: be stirred by truth about God, not just music or
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  Speaker 2: hype romans. Tend two says they have a zeal for God,
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  Speaker 2: but not according to knowledge, and in one Corinthians fourteen nineteen,
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  Speaker 2: Paul says, in the church, I would rather speak five
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  Speaker 2: words with my mind in order to instruct others than
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  Speaker 2: ten thousand words in a tongue. And the third thing
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  Speaker 2: I would say is that we should want our corporate
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  Speaker 2: gathering not to be so chaotic that people would say
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  Speaker 2: you're all out of your mind urse Corinthian's fourteen twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: If therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak
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  Speaker 2: in tongues and an outsider or an unbeliever enters, they
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  Speaker 2: will say you're out of your minds. And he doesn't
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  Speaker 2: want that to happen, so he regulates how tongues and
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  Speaker 2: prophecy are to be used. Maybe the best guideline I
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  Speaker 2: can give to help us distinguish between intensity hotness that
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  Speaker 2: honors God and intensity that doesn't honor God is the
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  Speaker 2: guideline Jonathan Edwards gave himself in his preaching, and I've
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  Speaker 2: always felt this is a healthy, wise biblical guideline. He said,
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  Speaker 2: I should think myself in the way of my duty
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  Speaker 2: to raise the affections, and he means spiritual emotions, raise
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  Speaker 2: the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can,
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  Speaker 2: provided they are not disagreeable to the nature of what
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  Speaker 2: they are affected with, and that they are rooted in
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  Speaker 2: the truth. So that's the guideline I think would help
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  Speaker 2: guide all of us as we try to descern what
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  Speaker 2: aspects of corporate worship are helpful in honoring God with
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  Speaker 2: our intensity and not helpful.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today.
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  Speaker 1: If you have a question to ask Pastor John, you
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  Speaker 1: can find a link to email us and you can
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  Speaker 1: find our a complete episode archive at askpastor John dot com.
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  Speaker 1: Every episode with audio and full transcripts available for each
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  Speaker 1: episode askpastor John dot com. Next time, Pastor Down will
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  Speaker 1: teach us an important reading scale that we need to
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  Speaker 1: interpret the Bible on our own and answer the questions
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  Speaker 1: we have about a text by using context and in
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  Speaker 1: valuable skill we all need demonstrated for us. Next time,
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Ranky. We'll see you on Monday.