Don

This year small groups will be meeting twice a month to study the book Don’t Waste Your Life, by John Piper. Don’t Waste Your Life is a passionate plea to this generation to live for God and his glory.

From the back cover:

John Piper writes, “I will tell you waste a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader’s Digest: A couple ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells….’ Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy.

“God has created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.”

Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life the counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, read this book, learn to live for Christ, and don’t waste your life!

We would like to encourage you to go ahead and order the book and the study guide if you can. Please order the books now so that you will have them in time for your first small group meeting. If cost is an issue, both are available online for free in PDF format here.

It is easy to pursue a religion of the mind; it is another thing to surrender your heart, and therefore every aspect of your life, to God….We cannot settle for expanding knowledge and enhanced understanding. We cannot because God will not. God demands all of us. He will not settle for a portion of who we are.

I started re-reading Lost in the Middle by Paul Tripp. Quite a few things are up in the air in my life right now, so I thought this book would be good medicine. I read the above quote and was struck by how much I tend to (wrongly) think mere study will change me. I don’t want to overlook the fact that God works through His Word to change us as we study. After all, we’re commanded to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). But that’s not what Dr. Tripp is getting at.

I think he has in mind what Herman Bavinck called the distinction between a theology of words and a theology of facts. A theology of words is the mere collection of ideas amassed in someone’s head like a stamp collection. There is no connection in the person’s life between the words—”justification,” “Trinity,” or “propitiation,” for example—and how they actually live. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to such a person whether or not his theology is actually true to the way the world is or not.

A theology of facts, on the other hand, holds on to the firm conviction that our theology points to real things and that those real things matter. A real God, Jesus’ real redeeming work, and our real sin should all impact how we think, speak, feel, and act. They should affect our relationships. They should affect how we pray. They should affect how we react to our circumstances. God has little time for people who want to make Him their hobby. He is concerned to make us men and women who are affected by who He is in all areas of our lives.

The following is an extract from Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter, edited by Nancy Guthrie (Crossway).

Chapter One: True Contemplation of the Cross

Martin Luther

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Hebrews 12:2–3

Let us meditate a moment on the passion of Christ. Some do so falsely in that they merely rail against Judas and the Jews. Some carry crucifixes to protect themselves from water, fire, and sword, and turn the suffering of Christ into an amulet against suffering. Some weep, and that is the end of it. The true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten. You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who so hated sin that he spared not his only begotten Son. What can the sinner expect if the beloved Son was so afflicted? It must be an inexpressible and unendurable yearning that causes God’s Son himself so to suffer. Ponder this and you will tremble, and the more you ponder, the deeper you will tremble.

Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ. Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nails driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when the thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts. Consider that if one thorn pierced Christ you deserve one hundred thousand.

The whole value of the meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble. If you are so hardened that you do not tremble, then you have reason to tremble. Pray to God that he may soften your heart and make fruitful your meditation upon the suffering of Christ, for we of ourselves are incapable of proper reflection unless God instills it.

But if one does meditate rightly on the suffering of Christ for a day, an hour, or even a quarter of an hour, this we may confidently say is better than a whole year of fasting, days of psalm singing, yes, than even one hundred masses, because this reflection changes the whole man and makes him new, as once he was in baptism.

If, then, Christ is so firmly planted in your heart, and if you are become an enemy to sin out of love and not fear, then henceforth the suffering of Christ, which began as a sacrament, may continue lifelong as an example. When tribulation and sickness assail you, think how slight these are compared to the thorns and the nails of Christ. If you are thwarted, remember how he was bound and dragged. If pride besets you, see how the Lord was mocked and with robbers despised. If unchastity incites your flesh, recall how his flesh was scourged, pierced, and smitten. If hate, envy, and vengeance tempt you, think how Christ for you and all his enemies interceded with tears, though he might rather have avenged himself. If you are afflicted and cannot have your way, take heart and say, “Why should I not suffer when my Lord sweat blood for very anguish?”

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

John 21:22

I’ve been reading The Call by Os Guinness. It’s very good, and I recommend it. He wrote a chapter on envy that challenged me.

Guinness cites John 21:17-19:

Jesus said to him, “…Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” …And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Peter then sees John and asks, “Lord, what about this man?” (John 21:21).

When you consider what you have and what others have, do you ever ask God this question about others? Perhaps you’re not so bold as to question God about it. Do you grumble in your heart that you have less than others–less money, less beauty, less strength, less physical ability, less intelligence? Do you compare yourself to others in your field–art, writing, programming, fighting, teaching? Hear Jesus’ response to Peter: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

Here is Guinness’s commentary on this verse: “When Jesus calls, he calls us one by one. Comparisons are idle, speculations about others a waste of time, and envy as silly as it is evil. We are each called individually, accountable to God alone, to please him alone, and eventually to be approved by him alone. If ever we are tempted to look around, compare notes, and use the progress of others to judge the success of our own calling, we wil hear what Peter heard: ‘What is that to you? Follow me!’” (p. 126–127)

Here are a series of links to the books I listed in the last blog post, in case you read the post before I added links in. You can get an online version of the John Piper books for free at the Desiring God website. Several of these are also available in our church book nook. They’re probably cheaper there, and you don’t have to pay shipping. Be sure to check this Sunday. It’s even a good idea to set aside some money to buy books every year.

• The Cross of Christ by John Stott
• The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer
• God and Creation by Herman Bavinck
  Note: The Doctrine of God is an abridgement of this book.
• Desiring God by John Piper
  Read Desiring God online.
• The Pleasures of God by John Piper
  Read the first three chapters of The Pleasures of God online.
• Lost in the Middle by Paul David Tripp
• Depression by Ed Welch
• In Two Minds by Os Guinness
  Note: This is out of print. If you can’t find it used using that link, it has been re-released as God in the Dark.
• How Long, O Lord? by D. A. Carson

When I Don’t Desire God by John Piper is good, as well. You can read When I Don’t Desire God online.