Dr. John Piper:

Audio Transcript

The word, under which you will now gather week in and week out, applied to you for the direction of your souls, is infinitely — I choose that word carefully — infinitely more authoritative than all presidential directives put together. The word of God in Scripture that will come and break over you week after week is infinitely wiser, deeper, sweeter, purer, stronger, more effective, more transforming, more durable, more lasting, more satisfying than all the directives and all the legislation that will come out of Washington for the next four years. Every week.

Not only that, but as you gather as the eternally loved people of God, under the word of God, in the power of the Spirit of God, you will in fact — in reality, in this room — meet God. God will come to you. There is a unique and manifest presence of the living God reserved for his family gathered in worship. I know whereof I speak, personally.

He will be enthroned, uniquely, on your praises (Psalm 22:3). He will reveal himself to you as you love him together in this room.

He will heal broken marriages as a husband and a wife singing together in the presence of God feel the impossible become possible.

He will humble the most arrogant sinner who walks through these doors. He will humble him, and he will walk out after meeting God in worship as a little child.

He will shine his light on your utter confusion as you walk in, and you will leave knowing what way to go.

He will catch you falling over the cliff of hopelessness as you walk in here, and by the end of these services you will feel ground under your feet.

He will convict you of the ugliness of a hidden habit that is quietly destroying your life. And you will walk out after meeting him under the word, by the Spirit in worship, not resolving to be free, but free.

I wonder if your expectations are that high. This is what he does when his people gather in worship.