How Hobbies Glorify God
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | We are about to begin day two of our conference for pastors here in downtown
00:00:08.000 | Minneapolis this morning, but the Ask Pastor John train keeps chugging,
00:00:12.000 | and we do our best to keep up with your excellent questions.
00:00:14.000 | Today's question comes from Graham in Tennessee.
00:00:16.000 | Pastor John, my question is this.
00:00:18.000 | Is it wrong to have hobbies such as hunting, flying, shooting, climbing,
00:00:21.000 | or any number of other things that cost a decent amount of money
00:00:24.000 | to be able to participate in?
00:00:26.000 | These things seem like something you would enjoy God's creation with,
00:00:29.000 | but it's also a lot of money not going towards missions.
00:00:31.000 | So where do you draw the line?
00:00:33.000 | Should we not do anything apart from those things strictly related to ministry,
00:00:36.000 | or maybe we enjoy other areas of life as well and split our money between the two?
00:00:41.000 | Oh, man.
00:00:42.000 | I'm reading right now biographies and books about and by Hudson Taylor,
00:00:50.000 | the missionary, and I think Hudson Taylor would answer this with pretty blunt,
00:00:57.000 | "Come on, come on, come on.
00:00:59.000 | Let's give our lives for this cause."
00:01:02.000 | So I have that ringing in my ears, and I don't want to soft pedal by being a
00:01:08.000 | culturally adapting Christian, but here's what I think I need to say biblically.
00:01:16.000 | Yes, some people waste their lives playing.
00:01:20.000 | They do.
00:01:21.000 | Their whole life is jumping from one fun to the next.
00:01:25.000 | It's about all they know to talk about and all they spend their life thinking about.
00:01:31.000 | It's the next toy or the next vacation or the next stunt that they're going to be a part of.
00:01:37.000 | And those people give little thought to the biblical truth that their life is not their own.
00:01:44.000 | Paul said, "You're not your own, for you were bought with a price.
00:01:49.000 | So glorify God with your body."
00:01:52.000 | It's like as if they do whatever they please with no reference to the one who owns them or bought them.
00:01:58.000 | And those people need to hit pause in their life and ask, "Am I really born again?
00:02:04.000 | Do I have any of the affections my Father in heaven has?"
00:02:08.000 | So to me then, if you operate from that verse, 1 Corinthians 6,
00:02:15.000 | then you ask about hobbies, whether outdoors or indoors,
00:02:19.000 | doesn't make any difference whether you collect coins or climb mountains.
00:02:23.000 | You ask, "Is this the Lord's will for my life that He bought and He owns?"
00:02:32.000 | And to answer that, you ask, "Am I glorifying Him in this hobby?
00:02:36.000 | Is this hobby serving to make Him look glorious?
00:02:43.000 | Is it making me look like one who values His glory above all?"
00:02:48.000 | Paul said, "Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, whether you climb mountains or hunt deer or collect coins or do crossword puzzles,
00:02:55.000 | do it to the glory of God.
00:02:58.000 | Make Him look like the treasure that He is in doing it.
00:03:03.000 | If you can't, don't do it."
00:03:06.000 | Now, how does that happen in hobbies or in leisure or in recreation?
00:03:11.000 | And I'll just mention three ways.
00:03:13.000 | One, is the hobby, the leisure, the recreation, feeding your own soul with God-exalting experiences?
00:03:22.000 | Do you see God in it and find your spirit enlivened for Him in it?
00:03:27.000 | Or is it dragging you down?
00:03:29.000 | Is it leaving you more distant from Him, more indifferent to Him,
00:03:33.000 | more in love with the world and less in love with Him?
00:03:36.000 | That's question one.
00:03:37.000 | Question two, is the hobby, the leisure, the recreation refreshing you physically, emotionally, spiritually
00:03:46.000 | for the other parts of your life where you need energy and focus to live for His glory as part of your vocation, perhaps, or your family?
00:03:54.000 | Or is the hobby depleting you and weakening you and making you less able to do that part of your life to the glory of God?
00:04:03.000 | That's question two.
00:04:04.000 | So here's three.
00:04:05.000 | Are you involving others in your hobby, leisure, recreation, so that they're pointed to the glory of God?
00:04:15.000 | Is your hobby a means of drawing others into your life for the sake of authentic relationships leading to Christ?
00:04:25.000 | So it seems to me that those are the questions that are more prominent than the amount of time you spend
00:04:33.000 | or the amount of money that you spend.
00:04:36.000 | Time and money are a subset of those questions.
00:04:41.000 | So instead of thinking quantitatively, quantities of time, quantities of money, think qualitatively,
00:04:48.000 | the quality of your walk with God.
00:04:51.000 | And is the hobby deepening your walk with God and enhancing your witness to others?
00:04:59.000 | Yes, very good questions to think through.
00:05:01.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:05:02.000 | And speaking of the Pastors Conference, which begins for us in a few minutes, today will be a very rich day.
00:05:07.000 | I'm sure on the schedule are two messages from Sinclair Ferguson and two messages from Michael Horton.
00:05:12.000 | And all four messages can be watched live online at DesiringGod.org.
00:05:16.000 | You can also watch Pastor John's biography message of Hudson Taylor, which will air tomorrow morning, Wednesday morning,
00:05:21.000 | at about 9 a.m. Central Time, 10 a.m. Eastern.
00:05:24.000 | We hope you can tune in for that.
00:05:26.000 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:05:27.000 | See you tomorrow.
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