What Does Our Experience of God's Love Depend Upon？ — John Piper

God's Love Is Poured Out by the Holy Spirit

This experience of the love of God being poured into my heart, His love for me, being poured experientially into my heart is through the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's number one. It is through the Holy Spirit.

The Experience Is Not Humanly Produced

Whatever else this experience is, it is not your work. You didn't make this happen. Nobody on earth made this happen. Preaching is important, gave my life to it. Worship in song is biblically important.

They don't make this happen. This is a work of the Holy Spirit. It's a supernatural work, which is why we pray, which is why we're so desperately dependent, right? All the things that matter in life, ultimately, God has to do.

The Holy Spirit Alone Makes God's Love Experientially Real

I can't make you love, you feel the love of God. I can't make you feel the love of God. Only the Holy Spirit can pour God's love into your heart in such a way that you say, my hope is real. Only He can do that, which causes me to just linger for a minute over some issues.

Family Background Does Not Determine the Experience of God's Love

It's sad, isn't it, that we can become so psychologized about families of origin, and whether you had a dad who modeled care for you, that we actually start thinking, well, if you didn't have a good dad, you probably can't experience the love of God as your father.

You ever heard that? Well, the reason this person cannot experience the sweetness and the preciousness of the love of God is because their dad beat them up or left. I think that argument is wicked. The Holy Spirit does this.

The Holy Spirit Works Beyond Families of Origin

Families of origin don't do this, right? Of course, it's harder, right? Of course, if you've had no help from your parents to discern what God is like, you got bigger things to overcome. But either this is a work of the Spirit, or it's a work of families.

Whole Families Also Need the Holy Spirit

Picture the other side. Picture the other side. You got now maybe a church full of families of origin that are whole. Dad was there. Dad cared. Might not even been a believer, but he was there. He cared.

It was solid. It was stable. And you now are well-adjusted and getting along just fine and thinking it's the love of God, and it's not. It's just you and your family of origin. It's just as easy to make a mistake that my my well-being right now, that's rooted in that perfect little family, is what this text is talking about.

The Spirit's Miracle Is Needed by the Broken and the Whole

It isn't. This text is talking about a miracle for the broken and a miracle for the whole. Miracle for people who came out of absolutely horrific family situations of abuse, say, and families who are just gold, everything.

They're just right on the advertisement, and both of them are desperately in need of the Holy Spirit. This is a work of the Holy Spirit. This experience of the love of God is not natural. It doesn't come from bad families or good families.

It comes from God.