Don't Waste Your Life
Don't Waste Your Life
By John Piper
By John Piper
"The Bible says, 'You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body' (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). I have written this book to help you taste those words as sweet instead of bitter or boring... 'Glorify God in your body.' God made you for this. He bought you for this. This is the meaning of your life" (p.9).
Piper shares the story of his own journey to find life's meaning. There is a story of a man converted to Christianity at an old age. This old man mourns his life before Christ saying, "I've wasted it!" Piper begins to ask the question, "How do I make sure I don't waste my life?" He journeys through collge in the 60's when the idea of objective reality is violently opposed by existentialist movements - "the spirit of the age". Thankfully, many influences moved him toward one objective Reality, God Himself. Gaining a wife along the way, he found through many of these influences that "all the glorious objectivity of Reality centered for me on the Word of God" (p.21). He determined to become a pastor.
Quotes from the chapter
In those early years God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life (p.12)
The ethical question "whether something is permissible" faded in relation to the question, "what is the main thing, the essential thing?" (p.14).
There is an answer. The answer, The answer, my friend, is not yours to invent or create. It will be decided for you. It is outside you. It is real and objective and firm (p.17).
Here was an absolutely compelling road sign. Stay on the road of objective truth. This will be the way to avoid wasting your life... Here was weighty intellectual confirmation that life would be wasted in the grasslands of existentialism. Stay on the road. There is Truth. There is a Point and Purpose and Essence to it all. Keep searching. You will find it (p.18).
[Speaking of C.S. Lewis] ...he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is not vice (p.19).
Piper's search for meaning and purpose in life had lead him to the Bible, where he beheld the glory of the Creator God and objective truth that exists beyond the created world. At this point he decided to pursue life as a pastor, a "minister of the Word". He says, "All I knew was that ultimate Reality had suddenly centered for me on the Word of God. The great Point and Purpose and Essence that I longed to link up with was now connected unbreakably with the Bible. The mandate was clear: 'Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). For me, that meant seminary, with a focus on understanding and rightly handling the Bible" (p.23). Things became more objective as Piper learned how to understand and interpret the Bible. The subjectivity and man-centeredness that reigned on the throne of existentialism, humanism, post-modernism, etc. is also a threat to understanding Scripture. For some reason some would argue that Bible texts have no objective meaning. Piper describes the scholars as "cutting off their own heads" with such arguments. Piper came to understand that, "there does exist an original meaning that a writer had in his mind when he wrote. And yes, valid interpretation seeks that intention in the text and gives good reasons for claiming to see it... If there is no valid interpretation based on real objective, unchanging, original meaning, then my whole being said, 'Let us eat, drink, and be merry. But by no means let us treat scholarship as if it really matters'" (p.25). So Piper learned the discipline of hermeneutics - the science of how to interpret the Bible. The story of redemptive history became clear, and with it a glorious purpose for life. There was as Piper describes it a "great coming together" for him. He quotes Dr. Daniel Fuller and then states his response, which I think is the summary statement of the chapter:
"God ordained a redemptive history whose sequence fully displays his glory so that, at the end, the greatest possible number of people would have had the historical antecedents necessary to engender [the most] fervent love for God... The one thing God is doing in all of redemptive history is to show forth his mercy in such a way that the greatest number of people will throughout eternity delight in him with all their heart, strength, and mind... When the earth of the new creation is filled with such people, then God's purpose in showing forth his mercy will have been achieved... All the events of redemptive history and their meaning as recorded in the Bible compose a unity in that they conjoin to bring about this goal" (Daniel Fuller, The Unity of the Bible). [Piper replies] Contained in these sentences were the seeds of my future. The driving passion of my life was rooted here. One of the seeds was the word "glory" - God's aim in history was to "fully display his glory". Another seed was in the word "delight" - God's aim was that his people "delight in him with all their heart". The passion of my life has been to understand and live and teach and preach how these two aims of God relate to each other - indeed, how they are not two but one (p.28).
The remainder of the chapter expands on the oneness of God's glory and our joy, and the "blazing center of God's glory" in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Quotes from the chapter:
It has become clearer and more certain and more demanding with every year. It has become clearer that God being glorified and God being enjoyed are not separate categories (p.28)
[Jonathan] Edwards was absolutely convinced that being happy in God was the way we glorify Him. This was the reason we were created (p.30).
"So we see it comes to this at last: that the end of the creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature; for if God created the world that He may be glorified in the creature, He created it that they might rejoice in His glory; for we have shown that they are the same" (Jonathan Edwards, Nothing Upon Earth Can Represent the Glories of Heaven, quoted by Piper, p.30-31).
God created me - and you - to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion - namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying His supreme excellence in all the spheres of life (p.31).
We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life (p.32).
God loves us by liberating us from the bondage of self so that we can enjoy knowing and admiring Him forever (p.36).
[Now Enters the Glory of Jesus Christ] Christ must be explicit in all our God-talk. It will not do, in this day of pluralism, to talk about the glory of God in vague ways. God without Christ is no God. And a no-God cannot save or satisfy the soul. Following a no-God - whatever his name or whatever his religion - will be a wasted life. God-in-Christ is the only true God and the only path to joy. Everything I have sad so far must now be related to Christ (p.38).
Jesus is the litmus test of reality for all persons and all religions (p.39).
There is no point in romanticizing other religions that reject the deity and saving work of Christ. They do not know God. And those who follow them tragically waste their lives (p.40).
Piper continues to narrow his focus, settling finally on the center, or bullseye of all things - the cross of Jesus Christ, the centerpiece of the Gospel and of redemptive history. The single, all-consuming, origin-of-all-that-is-good (I'm starting to think and write like Piper) passion and purpose in life is the glory of God in the cross of Christ. Piper describes how every boast is a boast in the death of Jesus Christ by those who have placed their faith in His saving work. By "Cross of Christ" Piper means all that is included in the culminating event of the Gospel of Christianity, including the resurrection. All that was accomplished by God for us in the work of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is captured in the reference to the "Cross of Christ". How is it possible that the cross of Jesus Christ can be the center and single passion of life? There are certainly a lot of things I will experience in my life. How can the Gospel of Jesus Christ be the central boast and enjoyment in all these things? Piper attempts to explain how this is so in this chapter, which also informs all the chapters that come after it. Ultimately, it is the cross of Jesus Christ by which all other good things, supremely of which is eternal joy in God, and all bad things turned for good originate. Piper explains this in what I think is a summary passage for the chapter: "There is a very profound reason for saying that all exultation, all rejoicing, all boasting in anything should be a rejoicing in the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul means something that will change every part of your life. He means that, for the Christian, all other boasting should also be a boasting in the cross. All exultation in anything else should be exultation in the cross. If you exult in the hope of glory, you should be exulting in the cross of Christ. If you exult in tribulation because tribulation works hope, you should be exulting in the cross of Christ. If you exult in your weaknesses, or in the people of God, you should be exulting in the cross of Christ. Why is this the case? Because for redeemed sinners, every good thing - indeed every bad thing that God turns for good - was obtained for us by the cross of Christ. Apart from the death of Christ, sinners get nothing but judgment. Apart from the cross of Christ, there is only condemnation. Therefore everything that you enjoy in Christ - as a Christian, as a person who trusts Christ - is owing to the death of Christ. And all your rejoicing in all things should therefore be a rejoicing in the cross where all your blessings were purchased for you at the cost of the death of the Son of God, Jesus Christ" (p.51).
Quotes from the chapter:
The opposite of wasting your life is living life with a single God-exalting, soul-satisfying passion. The well-lived life must be God-exalting and soul-satisfying because that is why God created us (Isaiah 43:7; Psalm 90:14) (p.43).
There must be a sense in which "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" is the ground and sum of everything else he [Paul] says. He is pushing us to see our lives with a single focus, and for the cross of Christ to be that focus (p.44).
The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on to eternity, you don't need to have a high IQ. You don't have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things - or one great all-embracing thing - and be set on fire by them (p.44).
[W]hatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion for your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it (p.47).
[There are a TON of excellent quotes from this chapter. I won't re-write all of them.]
One of the reasons we are not as Christ-centered and cross-saturated as we should be is that we have not realized that everything - everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good of His redeemed children - was purchases by the death of Christ for us. We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted... But for those who see the merciful hand of God in every breath they take and give credit where it is due, Jesus Christ will be seen and savored as the great Purchaser of every undeserved breath. Every heartbeat will be received as a gift from His hand (p.51-52).
In a section titled "Spreading a Passion for Christ Crucified - by Teaching" Piper makes a statement with significant ministry implications. He says, "The source of exultation in the cross of Christ is education about the cross of Christ... And if this is my job, yours is the same, just in a different form: to live and speak in such a way that the worth of 'Christ crucified' is seen and savored by more and more people. It will be costly for us as it was for Him" (p.54-55). The implication is that ALL activity in life and ministry should work toward this end employing this means.
Reflecting on a quote from C.S. Lewis, Piper wraps up the chapter with this statement, "The sunbeams of blessing in our lives are bright in and of themselves. They also give light to the ground where we walk. But there is a higher purpose for these blessings. God means for us to do more that stand outside them and admire them for what they are. Even more, He means for us to walk into them and see the sun from which they come. If the beams are beautiful the sun is even more beautiful. God's aim is not that we merely admire His gifts, but, even more, His glory (p.58).
"Living to magnify Christ is costly", Piper says on page 61. In this chapter, Piper describes how the road to joy in Christ is filled with loss, pain and persecution. It seems paradoxical that experiencing our highest possible joy is accompanied by continual trial, but when God is your highest treasure, everything else that is lost and fleeting means nothing. So experiencing loss and pain, which in this short life is temporary, is the means by which we grow to love God more and treasure Him more. Being stripped of everything that is less than God is actually the way to glorify Him more when our joy, peace, satisfaction is unshaken. The key verse for this chapter is Philippians 1:20-26.
Quotes from the chapter:
[S]uffering with Jesus on the Calvary road of love is not merely the result of magnifying Christ; it is also the means. He is made supreme when we are so satisfied in Him that we can 'let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also' and suffer for the sake of love. His beauty shines most brightly when treasured above health and wealth and life itself (p.61).
Whatever makes us more and more able to enjoy making much of God is a mercy. For there is no greater joy than joy in the greatness of God. And if we must suffer to see this and savor it most deeply, then suffering is a mercy. And Christ's call to take up our cross and join Him on the Calvary road is love (p.62).
When we embrace with joy the cost of following Christ, His worth will shine in the world (p.63).
What you love determines what you feel shame about. If you love for men to make much of you, you will feel shame when they don't. But if you love for men to make much of Christ, then you will feel shame if He is belittled on your account... Whenever something is of tremendous value to you, and you cherish its beauty or power or uniqueness, you want to draw others' attention to it and waken in them the same joy. That is why Paul's all-consuming goal in life was for Christ to be magnified. Christ was of infinite value to Paul, and so Paul longed for others to see and savor this value. That is what it means to magnify Christ - to show the magnitude of His value (p.65).
The essence of praising Christ is prizing Christ (p.68).
Piper spend a few pages expounding on Philippians 1:20-26. He makes a statement that is in some ways a summary, but also an important ministry application. He says, after expositing the passage, "Now we are in a position to see why Paul's two aims for his life are in fact one. According to verse 20, his aim is to magnify Christ in life; and according to verse 25, his aim is to promote the progress and joy in the Philippians' faith. That is why he believes God might let him live. This would be his life: to labor for their 'progress and joy in the faith'... That is the single, all-embracing passion of Paul's life. In other words, Paul is saying, 'My life is devoted to producing in you that one great experience of the heart by which Christ is magnified - namely, being satisfied in Him, joyfully treasuring Him above all else. That is, for me to live is your Christ-magnifying faith'" (p.70-71).
The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give your riches away for Christ's sake and count it gain (p.72).
The design of Paul's suffering was to make radically clear for his own soul, and for ours, that God and God alone is the only treasure who lasts. When everything in life is stripped away except God, and we trust Him more because of it, this is gain, and He is glorified (p.73).
Untold numbers of professing Christians waste their lives trying to escape the cost of love. They do not see that it is always worth it... God designs that tribulations intensify our hope for the glory of God. (p.73).
Piper explains the reality of risk in life and the myth of security. The picture painted in Scripture is one where personal comfort and security, even life itself is subject to loss (risked) for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ. What makes risk possible for the Christian is believing that God's promises remain unshakable and invincible in the face of the greatest threat. And affliction actually becomes beneficial to the Christian and serves our faith as we take risks for God.
Quotes from the chapter:
If our single, all-embracing passion is to make much of Christ in life and death, and if the life that magnifies Him most is the life of costly love, then life is risk, and risk if right. To run from it is to waste your life (p.79).
I define risk very simply as an action that exposes you to the possibility of loss or injury (p.79).
It may not be loving to choose comfort of security when something great may be achieved for the cause of Christ and for the good of others (p.80).
[I want to pause and personally reflect on this statement. This is the essential crossroads I found myself at when trying to discern between taking on the role as a Resident Advisor with Sigma Nu or not. That was a little over one year ago. I remember thinking specifically about the "comforts" I would be sacrificing. I would be giving up a quite and convenient living environment for one that I knew would be loud, crude, crowded and messy. I knew I would be giving up a living environment that was the quiet retreat that is so valuable to the introvert for one that is anything but quiet and crammed with constant relational interactions and somewhat challenging personalities. Everything about living in my own home screamed "comfort and security", while everything about living in the fraternity house screamed "uncomfortable and insecure". But I could not dismiss the loudest voice that said, "something significant could be achieved for the cause of Christ and the good of others". I believed that living in the fraternity house would achieve just that.
One year later, it's no contest that this has been the most rewarding year of my life. Never have I felt greater spiritual strength, or greater capacity for relationships, or greater capacity to care for people. I have never experienced so many opportunities for significant influence concentrated in one area, or in such a short time. Never have I learned so much about effective evangelism with this generation of young person, or evangelism in general for that matter. There is so much more that could be said about the benefit that this year has been to my life. Perhaps the greatest lesson I've learned is that risking comfort and security for the cause of Christ and good of others is always right and always rewarding. I pray that this experience would embolden me to take greater risks in the future and to live a life of risk for Christ.]
Piper talks about the inescapable reality of risk in our lives. The reason there is risk is because we are ignorant of the future. "Risk is possible because we don't know how things will turn out", he says on page 80. God, on the other hand knows no risk because He is omniscient. "Evidently God intends for us to live and act in ignorance and in uncertainty about the outcome of our actions" (p.80).
"One of my aims is to explode the myth of safety and to somehow deliver you from the enchantment of security. Because it's a mirage... The tragic hypocrisy is that the enchantment of security lets us take risks every day for ourselves but paralyzes us from taking risks for others on the Calvary road of love. We are deluded and think that it may jeopardize a security that in fact does not even exist. The way I hope to explode the myth of safety and to disenchant you with the mirage of security is simply to go to the Bible and show that it is right to risk for the cause of Christ, and not to is to waste you life" (p.81). I think this is the summary point of the chapter.
Piper then goes on to illustrate right risk-taking from various passages of Scripture. He explores the story of Joab in 2 Samuel 10, the story of Esther in Esther 4, the story of Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego in Daniel 3, and Paul in Acts 20 and 21 and 2 Corinthians 11. There are other passages that he considers to further illustrate his point that safety is a mirage and the Christian life will be one that demands risk-taking. There is also the story of Joshua and the people of Israel who, against Caleb and Joshua's emboldening plea, run from the threshold of the promised land for fear of its giant inhabitants. In disobedience they turn back to Egypt and pursue the illusion of safety and comfort. All this goes to show how Scripture is littered with examples of risk-taking.
The examination then turns to the reader. "What about you?" Piper asks. "And now what about you? Are you caught in the enchantment of security, paralyzed from taking any risks for the cause of God?" (p.89).
The remaining pages of the chapter narrow in on the reason for risk-taking and the power to do it and the reward for it:
I have been assuming that the power and the motive behind taking risks for the cause of God is not heroism, or the lust for adventure, or the courage of self-reliance, or the need to earn God's good will, but rather faith in the all-providing, all-ruling, all-satisfying Son of God, Jesus Christ... The strength to risk losing life in this world is faith in the promise that he who loses his life in this world will save it for the age to come. This is very different from heroism and self-reliance. When we risk losing face or money or life because we believe God will always help us and use our loss, in the end, to make us more glad in His glory, then it's not we who get the praise because of our courage; it's God who gets the praise because of His care. In this way risk reflects God's value, not our valor (p.90).
The bottom-line comfort and assurance in all our risk-taking for Christ is that nothing will ever separate us from the love of Christ (p.95).
Therefore, it is right to risk for the cause of Christ... This is the road that leads to fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. At the end of every other road - secure and risk-free - we will put our face in our hands and say, "I've wasted it!" (p.97-98).
By now the point is clear, joy in God is our chief purpose, and He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Joy in God glorifies God and causes us to forsake all other inferior pleasures. Joy in God conforms us to God - we become what we behold. Piper not only makes the case that it is our chief purpose to experience this ourselves, but also for us to help others experience supreme joy in God through Jesus Christ. The mission of every Christian, and another way to phrase the essence of the Great Commission, is to "gladly make others glad in God".
Piper actually begins the chapter addressing the issue of unforgiveness. If you are unforgiving, "wired to see other people's faults and failures and offenses, and treat them roughly, you will not take risks for their joy" (p.99). We must be people who are forgiving and full of grace towards others in order to sacrificially give of ourselves in order to meet the needs of others, both great and small.
Quotes from the chapter:
Forgiveness is essentially God's way of removing the great obstacle to our fellowship with Him. By canceling out sin and paying for it with the death of His own Son, God opens the way for us to see Him and know Him and enjoy Him forever. Seeing and savoring Him is the goal of forgiveness. Soul-satisfying fellowship with our Father is the aim of the cross. If we love being forgiven for other reasons alone, we are not forgiven, and we will waste our lives (p.100-101).
Our impulse for being forgiving people is the joy we have in a forgiving God... Our aim will be that others, through Jesus Christ, will find forgiveness and everlasting joy in God (p.101).
Piper speaks on the topic of sacrificial giving and links to tangible evidence that someone is actually a Christian:
What is the nature and aim of glad-hearted, Christian giving? It is the effort - with as much creativity and sacrifice as necessary - to give others everlasting and ever-increasing joy - joy in God (p.102).
"How then do we make others glad in God?" Piper asks. He says that is what the next chapters are about, but there is a need for some clarifying groundwork. Two clarifications specifically, which are the subject of the remainder of the chapter:
The first clarification is that, of course, we can't make anyone glad in God. Joy in God is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22)... Nevertheless, even though joy in God is ultimately a gift of God, He uses means to bring people into the fullness of it. Paul describes his whole ministry as laboring for the joy of others. "Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy" (2 Corinthians 1:24) (p.103).
The second clarification is that gladness in God is not a peripheral religious experience... I'm not saying that gladness is the whole of salvation. I am saying that gladness in God is the goal of all saving work, and the experiential essence of what it means to be saved. Without this joy in God, there would be no salvation (p.104). "So", Piper says, "when I speak of making someone glad in God, I include..." EVERYTHING wrapped up in the redeeming work of the Christian gospel - redemption, new birth, faith, repentance, sanctification, life of love, total renewal... (p.104).
With those two clarifications, I ask again, what should we do to make people glad in God? What paths of risk and sacrifice should we take in our passion for the supremacy of God in all things, and in our zeal to magnify Christ, and in our single-minded commitment to boast only in the cross? That is what the next chapters are about.
To live in a way that displays Christ as your highest treasure is to live in a way that gladly sacrifices all inferior treasures. The way I spend my time and my money are two primary ways by which I can tell what I actually value. In this chapter, Piper spends some considerable time describing what a lifestyle of sacrificial giving and risk might look like, all to reveal our supreme treasure in Christ Jesus. Piper opens the chapter with an introductory statement that sets up the chapter's content well:
To make others glad in God with an everlasting gladness, our lives must show that he is more precious than life. 'Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You' (Psalm 63:3). To do this we must make sacrificial life choices rooted in the assurance that magnifying Christ through generosity and mercy is more satisfying than selfishness. If we walk away from risk to keep ourselves safe and solvent, we will waste our lives. This chapter is about the kind of lifestyle that may keep that from happening (p.107).
A few sentences later Piper says, "I have in mind mainly how we use our money and how we feel about our possessions" (p.107).
Quotes from the chapter:
If we are exiles and refugees on earth (1 Peter 2:11), and if our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), and if nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35), and if His steadfast love is better than life (Psalm 63:3), and if all hardship is working for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17), then we will give to the winds our fears and 'seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness' (Matthew 6:33). We will count everything as rubbish in comparison with Christ (Philippians 3:7-8) (p.108).
When considering 1 Peter 3:15, which says, "Always be prepared to give a defense for the hope that you have", Piper asks, "Why don't people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do" (p.109). The challenge is to evaluate your life and your habits to determine what they declare to the world about where your hope and your treasure lies. I believe this is the main point of the chapter. The very next section is titled "The Credibility of Christ Hangs on How We Use Our Money". This may be the most important topic in this discussion. Piper makes a summary challenge in a following section title, which says, "Use Money to Show That God, Not Possessions, Is Our Treasure".
The phrase Piper uses to convey the lifestyle Christians should be living and the way they should be stewarding their resources is "War-time lifestyle". Essentially, a great war is taking place that all possible resources and energy must be directed towards, or at least stewarded in a way that maximizes their usefulness in winning the war. It is like what became of most of American culture during the Second World War. All family life, work life, economic production, etc. was subject to the demands of war and sacrifices were made to increase chances of victory. This is the lifestyle of the Christian, who is ever at war. Piper says,
I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth 'home'. Before you know it, I am calling luxuries 'needs' and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set (p.112).
One of the marks of this peacetime mind-set is what I call an avoidance ethic. In wartime we ask different questions about what to do with our lives than we do in peacetime. We ask: What can I do to advance the cause? What can I do to bring the victory? What sacrifice can I make or what risk can I take to insure the joy of triumph? In peacetime we tend to ask, What can I do to be more comfortable? To have more fun? To avoid trouble, and possibly, avoid sin? If we are going to pay the price and take the risks it will cost to make people glad in God, we move beyond the avoidance ethic... [As it applies to the life of the Christian] The better questions to ask about possible behaviors is: How will this help me treasure Christ more? How will it help me show that I do treasure Christ? How will it help me know Christ or display Christ? (p.118-119).
Piper spends some time zooming in on the degrading effects of television:
Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age... A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God (p.120).
Piper spend additional time developing the war-time lifestyle concept and addressing young people especially who seem to be consumed with clothes and coolness not so much Christ. "Where are the young radicals for Christ?" Piper says... "As I ... thought of all the things that high school kids think is cool. I sat on the porch where I was reading and thought, O God, who will get in their face and give them something to live for? They waste their days in a trance of insignificance, trying to look cool or talk cool or walk cool. They don't have a clue what cool is... Who takes them by the collar, so to speak, and loves them enough to show them a life so radical and so real and so costly and Christ-saturated that they feel the emptiness and triviality of their CD collection and their pointless conversations about passing celebrities? Who will wakes what lies latent in their souls, untapped - a longing not to waste their lives?" (p.127-128, 129). This is the challenge to all of us who call ourselves Christians.
'Work' is the thing that will consume most of the days of my life. Therefore, how do I not waste my life in my work? In this chapter, Piper gives solutions. Ultimately, work can be strategically and intentionally leveraged to make others glad in God.
Continuing with the "war-time lifestyle" concept, Piper says, "The war is not primarily spatial or physical - though its successes and failures have physical effects. Therefore, the secular vocations of Christians are a war zone. There are spiritual adversaries to be defeated (that is, evil spirits and sins, not people); and there is beautiful moral high ground to be gained for the glory of God. You don't waste your life by where you work, but how and why" (p.132).
"Secular is not bad, but strategic," Piper says. I think this is a valuable statement and important to make from the beginning. Secular work is not less important or less valuable or has less of a capacity for gospel influence that full-time ministry work or 'church work'. AND the two are not meant to operate separate from one another. Piper describes this as the relationship between the "goers and the senders" or the "ox and the people". Not quite so simply, but there is a relationship between secular and sacred where a transaction takes place. The work of the secular supplies the resources for the sacred and the work of the sacred supplies the spiritual strength and growth for those in the secular. Pastors and lay people are intertwined together in the mission of the gospel around the globe.
God does not want you to leave your secular vocation simply because you are a Christian. He may call you to do so, but it is not true for every Christian. 1 Corinthians 7:17 says, "Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him". Christians are meant to work in the secular world. The important questions is, "How can my life count for he glory of God in my secular vocation?" (p.135). Piper says, "Boasting only in the cross, our aim is to enjoy making much of Him by the way we work. The question is, How? The Bible points to at least six answers" (p.135). The remainder of the chapter explores these six answers:
We can make much of God in our secular job through the fellowship that we enjoy with Him throughout the day in all our work.
We make much of Christ in our secular work by the joyful, trusting, God-exalting design of our creativity and industry.
We make much of Christ in our secular work when it confirms and enhances the portrait of Christ's glory that people hear the spoken Gospel.
We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning enough money to keep us from depending on others, while focusing on the helpfulness of our work rather than financial rewards.
We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning money with the desire to use our money to make others glad in God.
We make much of Christ in our secular work by treating the web of relationships it creates as a gift of God to be loved by sharing the Gospel and by practical deeds of help.
Some key quotes from these six points:
Supporting this thankfulness and praise and trust are the promises of God that you can take to work every day - written in your Bible or memorized in your head (p.137)
God makes man, so to speak, His ruling deputy and endows him with God-like rights and capacities to subdue the world - to use it and shape it for good purposes, especially the purpose of magnifying the Creator... Therefore, at the heart of the meaning of work is creativity. If you are God, your work is to create out of nothing. If you are not God, but like God - that is, if you are human - your work is to take what God has made and shape it and use it to make Him look great (p.139).
...humans are morally self-conscious and make choices about their work on the basis of motives that may or may not honor God (p.140).
Therefore, the essence of our work as humans must be that it is done in conscious reliance on God's power, and in conscious quest of God's pattern of excellence, and in deliberate aim to reflect God's glory (p.141).
...those who abandon creative productivity lose the joy of God-dependent, world-shaping, God-reflecting purposeful work (p.141).
...with no spoken words about Jesus Christ, our secular work will not awaken wonder for the glory of Christ (p.142).
So the third was we make much of God in our secular work is by having such high standards of excellence and such integrity and such manifest goodwill that we put no obstacles in the way of the Gospel but rather call attention to the all-satisfying beauty of Christ (p.144).
Piper makes a great statement about the value of excellent work in opening doors for more significant personal and spiritual influence. He says, "Should Christians be known in their offices as the ones you go to if you have a problem, but not the ones you go to with a complex professional issue?" If you suck at your job, and no one trusts you with temporary work issues, why would they open up their heart to you about more significant life issues? One is a gateway to the other, and it adds value, purpose and motivation to our daily work duties when we see them as doorways to more significant influence.
...we make much of God by earning our own living when we focus not on financial profit but on the benefit our product or service brings to society... Work with a view to benefiting people with what you make or do (p.147-148).
But now I want to say that speaking the good news of Christ is a part of why God put you in your job (p.151).
In conclusion, secular work is not a waste when we make much of Christ from 8 to 5. God's will is this age is that His people be scattered like salt and light in all legitimate vocations. His aim is to be known, because knowing Him is life and joy. he does not call us out of the world. He does not remove the need to work. He does not destroy society and culture. Through His scattered saints He spreads a passion for His supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples. If you work like the world, you will waste your life, no matter how rich you get. But if your work creates a web of redemptive relationships and becomes an adornment for the Gospel of the glory of Christ, your satisfaction will last forever and God will be exalted in your joy (p.154).
It has been made clear that to be glad in God through faith in Jesus Christ, and to seek to make others glad in God is the single great purpose for life. Play this out and you naturally end up with the quest of world missions: reaching unreached people to make them glad in God. This is hard and full of risk, but worth your life. Piper says boldly and frankly that the church is not doing enough to reach the world for Christ. Ponder and pray earnestly, he pleads, that the Lord of the harvest would send out laborers into the harvest field. Perhaps you are one of them.
"God is closing in on some of you. He is like the 'Hound of Heaven' who means to make you far happier in some dangerous and dirty work. Missionaries and ministers of mercy don't come from nowhere. They come from people like you, stunned by the glory of God and stopped in your tracks. Sometimes it happens when you are going in exactly the opposite direction" (p.155).
Piper shares the story of Adoniram Judson. He was the first missionary sent from America to the people of Burma He took exceptional risk and ended up losing family and children. "God does not call us to ease, but to faithful joy. he is closing in on some of you, smiling and with tears in His eyes, knowing how much of Himself He is going to show you - and how much it will cost. As I write, I pray that you will not turn away" (p.158).
"Thus, if your aim is to love people, you will lay down your life to make them eternally glad in God. And if your aim is to glorify Christ, who is God incarnate, you will also lay down your life to make people eternally happy in God... God is only praised where He is prized... This single passion - to see that Christ be glorified as perishing people become eternally satisfied in Him - drives the great global enterprise we call world missions" (p.159).
Piper then sites several Old and New Testament passages that clearly articulate the heart of God for every people group of the world. The case for world missions is simply undeniable. It is central and it has implications for your life. How will you respond?
The rest of the chapter is full of some very compelling statements:
There can be no weary resignation, no cowardly retreat, and no merciless contentment among Christ's people while He is disowned among thousands of unreached peoples. Every Christian (who loves people and honors Christ) must care about this... So I urge you in the name of Jesus to wake up, and enlarge your heart, and stretch your mind, and spread your wings. Mount up above your limited life - yes, a very important life, which God does not diminish - and see that great and thrilling big picture of God's global purposes for the history of the world that cannot fail (p.163).
We are hypocrites to pretend enthusiasm for overseas ministry while neglecting the miseries at home (p.164).
Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within His followers except the adoption of Christ's purpose toward the world He came to redeem... The evangelization of the world is the only enterprise large enough and important enough to provide an adequate outlet for the Church's wealth (J.Campbell White, p.170).
Piper pleads earnestly for people to prayerfully consider the call to the most important work of eternity. One of his final statements says, "But if the discontent with your present situation is deep, recurrent, and lasting, and if that discontent grows in Bible-saturated soil, God may be calling you to a new work. If, in your discontent, you long to be holy, to walk pleasing to the Lord, and to magnify Christ with your one, brief life, then God may indeed be loosening your roots in order to transplant you to a place and a ministry where the deep spiritual ambitions of your soul can be satisfied. It is true that God can be known and enjoyed in every legitimate vocation; but when He deploys you from one place to the next, He offers fresh and deeper drinking at the fountain of His fellowship. God seldom calls us to an easier life, but always calls us to know more of Him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace" (p.178).
The final chapter is a seven-page prayer from Piper asking the Lord to ignite a people passionate for the glory of His name in all areas of life. The closing paragraph will end things well. Piper prays, "Let love flow from Your saints, and may it, Lord, be this: that even if it costs our lives, the people will be glad in God. 'Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.' Take your honored place, O Christ, as the all-satisfying Treasure of the world. With trembling hands before the throne of God, and utterly dependent on Your grace, we lift our voice and make this solemn vow: As God lives, and is all I ever need, I will not waste my life... through Jesus Christ, AMEN" (p.189).