How Do You Synthesize Your Simple Lifestyle and Speaking at Expensive Conferences?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Day one at the Pastors Conference is in the books
00:00:07.560 | at the Minneapolis Convention Center,
00:00:09.000 | and we prepare for day two, which is incredibly full.
00:00:12.160 | Be sure to follow the schedule and the livestream
00:00:14.600 | at desiringgod.org/live for all of the Tuesday
00:00:19.000 | details and schedule.
00:00:20.880 | As you know, Pastor John, conferences are costly,
00:00:23.360 | and you have spoken at scores of conferences
00:00:25.840 | over the years, and many that dwarf our Pastors Conference
00:00:29.200 | when it comes to size and venue cost and musical experience
00:00:34.200 | and lighting and production, and frankly,
00:00:36.240 | by the sheer budget.
00:00:38.080 | A listener to the podcast, Sean, writes in to ask this.
00:00:40.520 | Pastor John, I've attended three Passion Conferences
00:00:42.760 | as a student and have now volunteered
00:00:45.000 | at five other Passion Conferences.
00:00:47.680 | God used Passion to turn my life right side up
00:00:50.740 | and to call me to the nations.
00:00:52.760 | I was introduced to the ministry of Desiring God
00:00:54.900 | through Passion too.
00:00:56.520 | It is obvious to me that God has used these conferences
00:00:59.560 | for great good.
00:01:00.960 | I know Louis Giglio is a Christian hedonist,
00:01:03.840 | and I think Passion has remained a Christ-centered movement.
00:01:07.600 | However, having seen the conferences now behind the scenes
00:01:11.040 | as a volunteer, part of me has honestly been a little appalled
00:01:15.000 | at the sheer magnitude of expense, equipment,
00:01:17.920 | and labor that goes into an event of this size.
00:01:21.440 | Is there a biblical way to think about and support
00:01:24.360 | large conferences that do so much good,
00:01:27.160 | but at the same time, at least on the surface,
00:01:29.120 | look somewhat out of character with the simplicity
00:01:31.920 | of Jesus's wartime lifestyle?
00:01:34.800 | What would you say to Sean?
00:01:36.920 | The first thing I would say is how thankful I am
00:01:41.600 | when anyone is wrestling in America or in the West
00:01:46.600 | with the question of whether our Western prosperity
00:01:52.240 | in any of its forms is a good reflection
00:01:56.680 | of the life of Jesus and what Jesus calls us to live.
00:02:01.680 | Now, my own sense of this is that none of us
00:02:07.680 | has conformed every aspect of our lifestyle
00:02:13.440 | to the beauty of Christ and his radical orientation
00:02:16.400 | on God and heaven and people,
00:02:21.320 | rather than self in this world and material possessions.
00:02:26.120 | None of us has arrived at conforming our lives
00:02:30.000 | to Jesus's way fully.
00:02:32.240 | So I don't begin to claim that I occupy a position
00:02:36.200 | at this moment on APJ that I could confidently hold up
00:02:41.200 | in every aspect as exemplary for everyone in America.
00:02:47.640 | Compared to the vast populations of the developing world,
00:02:52.040 | all of us in America, no matter how simple our lifestyle,
00:02:56.840 | are wealthy.
00:02:58.320 | When the New Testament addresses the rich,
00:03:01.920 | we should think it is addressing us,
00:03:05.040 | not just the millionaires on Wall Street.
00:03:07.840 | In other words, it isn't just large conferences
00:03:11.400 | or concerts or crusades that attract tens of thousands
00:03:16.280 | of people and may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:03:20.000 | It isn't just them that look out of character
00:03:22.560 | when compared to the first century Palestinian simplicity.
00:03:25.600 | Everything looks out of character.
00:03:27.120 | Everything in modern life looks out of character
00:03:31.180 | with Jesus' way of life.
00:03:33.960 | Simply to have a car looks wildly out of character.
00:03:38.960 | To live in a house with central heating,
00:03:44.160 | indoor plumbing, no outhouse,
00:03:47.620 | drinking water flowing out of every faucet in the house,
00:03:53.480 | electricity lighting every room with wonderful light
00:04:00.160 | any time of day or night, refrigeration,
00:04:03.520 | keeping all our food from spoiling for weeks,
00:04:08.040 | communication devices to put us in touch with the police
00:04:10.880 | if we need police within five minutes or medical help.
00:04:14.500 | It's just incredible in my neighborhood.
00:04:17.200 | I can just punch three numbers into my phone
00:04:19.520 | and somebody will show up to save my life
00:04:22.520 | in three minutes from Henman County.
00:04:25.920 | I've seen it done with hundreds of books
00:04:29.360 | on every shelf in my house,
00:04:32.320 | computer software that lets me examine
00:04:34.700 | any part of the Bible or any book anywhere in the world
00:04:37.520 | within seconds.
00:04:39.400 | All of these are stunningly different, out of character.
00:04:44.400 | It feels out of character.
00:04:47.440 | With the lifestyle of a first century Palestinian peasant,
00:04:52.440 | nothing is to be taken for granted.
00:04:57.080 | I think sometimes we think of lifestyle
00:05:00.400 | in terms of denying ourselves a few things here and there,
00:05:03.560 | failing to realize everything in our life
00:05:07.000 | is a mark of wealth and prosperity
00:05:10.080 | and incredible advances scientifically and other ways.
00:05:15.080 | So amen to Sean for asking the question.
00:05:19.960 | And my approach now to lifestyle issues of this sort
00:05:24.960 | is to try to take the main aim of scripture
00:05:30.080 | and pursue it by balancing two guidelines.
00:05:34.240 | Here's what I mean.
00:05:35.080 | The main aim of scripture is to magnify
00:05:39.280 | the supreme truth and beauty and worth of Jesus Christ.
00:05:43.760 | That is the ultimate aim of all things,
00:05:47.140 | to magnify the supreme truth and beauty and worth
00:05:52.140 | of God in Christ or Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father.
00:05:57.200 | To live to show that Jesus is better than life
00:06:02.760 | is the goal of life.
00:06:04.260 | To spend money in a way that shows Jesus better than money
00:06:08.960 | is the goal of money.
00:06:10.480 | To buy or rent a house to show that Jesus is better
00:06:14.860 | than a house is the way you're supposed to buy a house.
00:06:17.340 | To get an education to show that Jesus is better
00:06:21.320 | than education is the way to get an education
00:06:23.640 | and on and on and on.
00:06:25.320 | So the ultimate aim of the Bible, of scripture, of history,
00:06:28.940 | of life, of the universe, of God in all things
00:06:31.720 | is to magnify the supreme truth, beauty, and worth of Jesus.
00:06:36.340 | Now, there are two guidelines with regard to lifestyle
00:06:40.780 | that guide me in pursuing that goal.
00:06:43.660 | One, God gives us good gifts of creation to be enjoyed
00:06:48.660 | as expressions of his own all-satisfying nature,
00:06:52.940 | 1 Timothy 6, 17.
00:06:55.060 | As for the rich, that's us, as for the rich
00:06:58.260 | in this present age, charge them not to be haughty
00:07:01.900 | nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches,
00:07:05.560 | but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
00:07:10.560 | In other words, enjoy God's gifts in creation
00:07:15.960 | without experiencing them as more satisfying than God
00:07:21.680 | or separated from God.
00:07:25.800 | Be thankful to God for them and taste God in them.
00:07:29.720 | That's principle number one, guideline number one.
00:07:33.120 | Number two is we are not yet in heaven.
00:07:36.620 | We're not in paradise.
00:07:38.960 | We're not yet beyond death.
00:07:40.400 | We're not yet beyond sickness or sin or depression
00:07:43.940 | or hunger or genocide or injustice or poverty or crime
00:07:48.400 | or addictions or divorce or ethnocentrism or hatred.
00:07:53.520 | And therefore, to think of maximizing earthly comforts
00:07:58.520 | and securities and pleasures now
00:08:04.760 | is a fundamental misreading of the age we live in.
00:08:08.840 | We are at war with the God of this world
00:08:12.420 | and the stakes are eternal and the weapons are spiritual
00:08:16.600 | and how we live should reflect this wartime moment.
00:08:21.680 | This wartime mindset.
00:08:24.940 | So those are my two principles to keep in balance,
00:08:29.360 | a world to enjoy as a gift of God
00:08:34.120 | and a world to save in the power of God.
00:08:39.120 | So my way of sorting through lifestyle issues,
00:08:43.520 | including very expensive conferences or mission trips
00:08:47.680 | or church buildings, is not to think merely
00:08:52.480 | in terms of simplicity,
00:08:54.840 | but in terms of wartime effectiveness.
00:08:58.480 | In wartime, you may not change the tires on your car
00:09:03.480 | because the front line needs the rubber for the Jeeps.
00:09:08.400 | And in that sense, you are radically simple,
00:09:12.160 | but you may also build a $50 million B-52 bomber
00:09:17.600 | to deliver the knockout blow to the enemy
00:09:20.880 | that ends the war.
00:09:23.720 | Jesus presses us toward a wartime lifestyle
00:09:28.400 | for the sake of others,
00:09:30.680 | not merely for the sake of simplicity in itself.
00:09:35.200 | Sell your possessions and give to the needy.
00:09:38.740 | Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old
00:09:41.800 | with a treasure in the heavens, Luke 12:33 or Luke 16:9.
00:09:47.080 | Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth
00:09:51.560 | so that when it fails,
00:09:53.440 | they will receive you into eternal dwellings,
00:09:56.320 | or Luke 12, 29.
00:09:58.160 | Do not seek what you are to eat
00:10:00.440 | or what you are to drink or be worried,
00:10:03.120 | for all the nations seek those things
00:10:05.720 | and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
00:10:07.520 | Instead, seek his kingdom
00:10:09.800 | and these things will be added to you.
00:10:11.520 | So the aim is always the great, eternal goodness.
00:10:16.680 | Good and advance of the kingdom
00:10:19.720 | in people's hearts and in lives.
00:10:22.040 | A wartime lifestyle does not romanticize
00:10:27.040 | about simple living,
00:10:30.240 | as if the world in its lost condition
00:10:34.240 | benefited from my growing vegetables in the backyard
00:10:37.680 | or my having only two pairs of jeans
00:10:40.320 | that I wear every other day.
00:10:42.280 | That does no good for the world at all necessarily.
00:10:46.500 | A wartime lifestyle may spend a great deal of money
00:10:51.500 | to accomplish some great good for the world.
00:10:55.520 | And in the process,
00:10:57.400 | that expense may look like something Jesus never did.
00:11:01.520 | In fact, he didn't, he didn't.
00:11:03.840 | But that difference, I think, is incidental
00:11:08.460 | if the deeper commitments are the same,
00:11:11.160 | God and heaven and people over self
00:11:14.880 | and this world and material possession.
00:11:18.480 | So here's my counsel to all of us.
00:11:21.800 | Whether you have a small influence
00:11:24.520 | over one other person in your life or huge influence,
00:11:28.280 | say a $100,000 salary or a $500,000 salary
00:11:33.280 | does not have to be accompanied
00:11:39.480 | by a corresponding $100,000 or $500,000 lifestyle.
00:11:45.480 | That's the American lie.
00:11:48.200 | God is calling us to be conduits of grace and resources,
00:11:53.200 | not cul-de-sacs.
00:11:57.300 | Our danger today is thinking
00:11:59.760 | that the conduit has to be gold-lined.
00:12:03.720 | It shouldn't be.
00:12:05.240 | Copper will do.
00:12:06.480 | I wrote a chapter about that.
00:12:08.360 | Copper will do as we channel a $500,000 salary
00:12:14.360 | into good for others while we live at a, what,
00:12:19.360 | 60, 40, 50, $1,000 lifestyle.
00:12:24.440 | And here's the great reason.
00:12:27.680 | Gratitude for luxury,
00:12:31.000 | and I'm trying to respond to prosperity stuff here.
00:12:34.980 | Gratitude for luxury impresses no one with our Savior.
00:12:39.980 | Yes.
00:12:42.640 | No matter how grateful we are,
00:12:46.040 | lining our lives with gold will not make the world think
00:12:51.000 | that our God is great.
00:12:52.760 | It will make the world think that our God is gold.
00:12:56.220 | That is no honor to the supremacy of His worth, none.
00:13:02.560 | But His supremacy,
00:13:06.480 | Him being infinitely more valuable than gold,
00:13:09.920 | is why we live.
00:13:12.600 | - That is spiritual gold, metaphorical gold.
00:13:15.120 | Thank you, Pastor John,
00:13:16.080 | and thank you for the blunt but humble question, Sean.
00:13:20.160 | Speaking of conferences,
00:13:21.160 | we need to get back to the conference in town.
00:13:23.720 | For more information about this podcast
00:13:25.400 | or to search our archive of questions,
00:13:27.520 | go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:13:32.520 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:33.760 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:13:35.880 | with John Piper.
00:13:37.200 | Tomorrow we return to look at the nature of joy.
00:13:40.260 | What is it and where can we find it?
00:13:42.800 | We'll see you then.
00:13:43.760 | (upbeat music)
00:13:46.340 | (upbeat music)
00:13:48.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]