Chapter 7 | Don't Waste Your Life

Chapter 7|LIVING TO PROVE HE IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN LIFE

A small group resource for student reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper

This chapter sounds the same note that has been struck at youth group over the past couple weeks. The truth about Jesus that we talk and sing about should change our lives. Our lives should have a noticeable difference as a result of the gospel. Piper opens the chapter by saying it this way, "To make others glad in God with everlasting gladness, our lives must show that he is more precious than life" (pg. 107 emphasis added). In other words, if we truly value Jesus Christ, then our decisions will reflect that value. Our lives and our possessions will not be our treasure (because Christ is), and others will see that we put our hope in something greater, namely Christ. The idea is that our lives should be an indicator of how great our God is. We should be pointing people to God. This means our lives will look different than the lives of our un-believing friends.

"If Christ is an all-satisfying treasure and promises to provide all our needs, even through famine and nakedness, then to live as though we had all the same values as the world would betray him" (pg. 107). Piper has in mind here both money and possessions. "If we want to make people glad in God, our lives must look as if God, not possessions, is our joy" (pg. 111).

How can we do this? What sort of mindset will it take to help us accurately view our money and possessions? Piper offers us the useful terminology of "Wartime Lifestyle." Which he reminds us that we need to constantly revisit:

"I need to hear this message again and again because I slip into a peace time mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired 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 that have forced me again and again towards a wartime mind-set" (pg. 112)

This is a helpful mindset to remind us to be on mission with Jesus. It is all too easy to settle into routine and forget that Christ enlists us into His Kingdom work. "A wartime lifestyle implies that there is a great and worthy cause for which to spend and be spent" (pg. 114). Then Piper gives many illustrations to help us grasp the nature of the cause. He even points out that sinners give themselves devotedly to causes, so we should be all the more eager to give ourselves unreservedly to the greatest cause ever, the cause of Christ!

But, we can easily be hindered from full on enlistment. Piper offers two distractions... television and clothes. Unfortunately there are way more than two distractions but it helps us to think through these two. With television (and I will throw internet into this discussion too), it is far too easy to waste our lives in front of the monitor. We may not be watching or viewing inappropriate content, but the sheer amount deadens us to the realities of life and the urgency of our mission. The quote from Douglas Groothuis was fascinating and convicting:

The images appear and disappear and reappear without a proper rationale context. An attempt at a sobering news story about slavery in the Sudan is followed by a lively advertisement for Disneyland, followed by an appeal to purchase panty hose that will make any woman irresistible, etc., ad nauseum" (pg. 122).

I was reminded of how much this occurs as we surf facebook and blogs. Many times throughout the day I will read jolly posts from my friends, then click over to some devastating issue addressed in a blog or news site like the death of missionaries, then look at my phone to view a text from my soon to be wife, and unfortunately I cannot process that I should be saddened over the devastating news, or laugh at the facebook post, or smile because of the text. It is simply too much. So, I go into a catatonic state that usually takes me 30 minutes to shake once I leave the office. Then, imagine getting a phone call from someone in need of ministry!? I am hardly fit to take the call!

The other issue that Piper raises is how young people view their clothes, which actually stems from a much larger issue of desperately wanting a noticeable self-identity... or wanting to be cool. "What a tragedy to see so many young people obsessed with what they wear and how thy look" (pg. 126). I know Piper is much older than even some of your parents and maybe you could view him as 'old-fashioned.' So let me point you to some young people raising the same issue. Alex and Bret Harris from therebelution.com have written much on modesty. You can read an article on modesty here.

Piper's prayer for us is in this regard is priceless:

"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" (pg. 128).

Our desire is that you think through not only TV, internet, and clothing, but EVERYTHING you do. We want you to really evaluate whether or not your life points people to Christ. So let us end with some questions:

Do you treasure Christ?

Do your decisions reflect that you treasure Christ?

Would friends or coworkers have any reason to ask for the hope that you have?

or,

Are you an undercover Christian that looks exactly like everyone else?

Will Christ be ashamed of you before His Father (because you have been ashamed of Him before men)?

We pray that you live up to the calling which Christ has placed on you.