What Makes My Life Significant?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - What can I do to ensure that my life counts?
00:00:08.480 | To ensure that the life that God has given to me matters?
00:00:11.960 | That is a significant question, it's a universal question,
00:00:15.040 | and one asked of John Piper on June 3rd of this year
00:00:18.560 | in Monticevano, Italy.
00:00:20.640 | It came in the context of a television interview,
00:00:23.160 | and what follows is a field recording
00:00:24.800 | of what John Piper said, and answering the question,
00:00:26.880 | what is the true significance of life,
00:00:30.200 | and how is this related to risk-taking?
00:00:33.120 | Here's what he said.
00:00:34.120 | - The true significance of life
00:00:40.120 | is that God made human beings in his own image
00:00:45.120 | with precious value, and that value, that significance,
00:00:50.680 | consists in knowing God, loving God, showing God.
00:00:57.360 | In other words, life is about God.
00:01:01.240 | Man is not central, God is central.
00:01:04.720 | He created the universe and humanity
00:01:07.720 | in order to magnify the greatness of God,
00:01:11.360 | and our joy in this world, which God made essential,
00:01:16.360 | is in Jesus Christ, in God the Father, in the Holy Spirit,
00:01:21.360 | so there's no tension between finding our significance
00:01:25.600 | in making much of God and being as happy as we can be.
00:01:30.520 | This is one of the greatest discoveries of my life,
00:01:32.880 | that God's purpose to be glorified
00:01:35.640 | and my passion to be satisfied are not at odds.
00:01:40.440 | They come together in finding my satisfaction in God,
00:01:45.280 | so I use the little phrase, God is most glorified in me
00:01:50.280 | when I am most satisfied in him,
00:01:53.680 | so he gets the glory, I get the joy.
00:01:56.960 | Now, the second part of your question about risk
00:01:59.760 | and taking chances is that people who find
00:02:04.240 | their fullest joy and satisfaction in God
00:02:07.920 | that can never be taken away,
00:02:09.840 | not even death can take it away,
00:02:12.120 | in God's presence, his fullness of joy,
00:02:14.600 | at his right hand are pleasures forever, forever,
00:02:18.000 | so death cannot stop my joy.
00:02:20.800 | Those kind of people are the most risky,
00:02:24.480 | dangerous, in the good sense, they love others at any cost,
00:02:29.480 | so if I see that you are in trouble, that you are dying,
00:02:34.920 | which I think everybody is dying
00:02:36.640 | and perishing without Christ,
00:02:38.600 | I'm willing to lay down my life for you
00:02:41.360 | because death doesn't take away my joy
00:02:44.600 | and if you would believe in Christ,
00:02:48.240 | then my joy is doubled because I find my joy
00:02:51.920 | in your joy in God, so I think it's the best of all worlds.
00:02:56.920 | God gets the glory, I get joy, and you get loved.
00:03:02.280 | - The follow-up question came next,
00:03:06.040 | so what then is the wasted life?
00:03:09.560 | Here's what Piper said.
00:03:14.360 | - We waste our lives if we seek our happiness
00:03:19.360 | and our significance without reference to Jesus Christ.
00:03:25.240 | If God is left out of the picture,
00:03:29.200 | if Christ is taken out of the picture
00:03:32.760 | and we become a millionaire,
00:03:35.200 | have all the sexual pleasures we can imagine,
00:03:38.760 | become very famous, we've wasted our lives
00:03:42.760 | because in the end, God is the one who created the world
00:03:46.640 | and God is bringing the world and everything in it
00:03:50.160 | to an end for his purposes
00:03:52.640 | and if we haven't joined him in those purposes,
00:03:56.320 | we're wasting our lives.
00:03:58.400 | You waste your life if you don't do
00:04:01.480 | what you were designed to do
00:04:04.080 | and every human being created in the image of God
00:04:07.160 | was designed to reflect the glory of God,
00:04:10.360 | the worth of God, the beauty of God.
00:04:12.960 | So if we don't find our joy in Christ,
00:04:16.960 | if we don't find our satisfaction in Christ,
00:04:19.360 | but instead find it in other things
00:04:21.600 | that may in the short run look very satisfying,
00:04:24.880 | we have wasted our lives,
00:04:26.840 | which means most of the world is wasting its life
00:04:31.600 | because they don't know God, they don't love God.
00:04:34.520 | God is a very small, marginal consideration
00:04:38.960 | out on the edge of life,
00:04:41.160 | maybe every now and then he's brought into life in a crisis,
00:04:44.960 | well, that's a great blasphemy,
00:04:46.720 | that's a great dishonor to God
00:04:49.480 | and we will find at the end of our lives,
00:04:51.400 | we've wasted it if we've treated God
00:04:54.040 | as marginal instead of central.
00:04:56.600 | - That's so good.
00:04:58.480 | This was a field recording captured
00:05:00.400 | during John Piper's television interview
00:05:02.200 | in Monticevano, Italy, recorded on June 3rd of this year
00:05:05.840 | during his recent international trip.
00:05:07.960 | John Piper was there for the Italian Ministries
00:05:10.120 | Congresso Missione 2016 conference
00:05:12.720 | and he was interviewed by Alessandro Iovino.
00:05:15.520 | Little clips like this one remind us
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00:05:29.640 | Desiring God in this podcast is supported almost entirely
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00:05:37.920 | For your generosity.
00:05:39.720 | Well, suffering is never very far away
00:05:41.720 | from any of our lives and tomorrow a listener
00:05:43.600 | wants John Piper's thoughts on the recent story
00:05:45.600 | in the news of Jerica Bolin in Appleton, Wisconsin.
00:05:48.840 | She is a 14-year-old girl with a terminal illness
00:05:51.860 | who has decided that her life should come to a swift end.
00:05:55.760 | That is tomorrow.
00:05:56.600 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:05:58.560 | with longtime author and theologian and pastor,
00:06:01.520 | John Piper, we'll see you tomorrow.
00:06:03.280 | (upbeat music)
00:06:05.860 | (upbeat music)
00:06:08.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]