How Do I Survive This Midlife Crisis?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Thanks for listening to Ask Pastor John
00:00:05.400 | with longtime pastor and author, John Piper.
00:00:07.840 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:00:09.880 | Well, about a year ago, we recorded an episode titled,
00:00:12.880 | "My Midlife Crisis in Counsel for Yours,"
00:00:15.200 | episode 1137 in the archive.
00:00:17.240 | It was a very personal autobiographical account
00:00:19.320 | of a season of your life, Pastor John,
00:00:21.400 | and it's now been listened to about 200,000 times.
00:00:25.040 | It's generated a load of grateful emails in the inbox,
00:00:28.340 | and since then, we've gotten a lot of emails
00:00:30.040 | from guys going through this season of life who,
00:00:32.960 | well, really just want you to talk more about it.
00:00:35.760 | Here's one from a listener named Leo.
00:00:38.360 | Hello, Pastor John, thank you for your APJ episode
00:00:40.340 | on your own midlife crisis.
00:00:42.380 | That's where I'm at now, and you have helped me to see
00:00:45.680 | that I am not alone, thank you.
00:00:48.020 | I was wondering if it was a combination of mission,
00:00:51.980 | life, stress, and genetics that caused you to feel at times
00:00:56.120 | like crying and having a deep sense of depression.
00:00:59.960 | It seems complex, I recently reached 43,
00:01:03.120 | and noticed some changes in my mood
00:01:05.040 | and extreme depression at times.
00:01:06.680 | Can you share more about your own experiences here?
00:01:10.360 | Well, I'm reluctant to talk about myself,
00:01:15.080 | since I think it creates a kind of pleasant bond
00:01:20.080 | (laughs)
00:01:22.520 | among us poor, wimpy guys.
00:01:25.200 | (laughs)
00:01:27.280 | But it doesn't do us a lot of good in the end.
00:01:30.320 | I mean, it's nice to have comrades in misery,
00:01:33.200 | but it doesn't help all that much.
00:01:36.720 | But I am willing, I mean, I didn't have to answer
00:01:39.400 | this question, you know, but I am willing to talk about it
00:01:43.360 | for two main reasons.
00:01:45.760 | One, and it's the main one, is that the older I get,
00:01:53.240 | the more I want to give God public, heartfelt,
00:01:58.120 | explicit credit and praise for keeping me
00:02:03.120 | through every kind of distress that I have experienced.
00:02:09.280 | I really want to make known to as many people
00:02:14.920 | as will listen that God has kept a hold of me,
00:02:21.700 | and this is the decisive reason why I have kept hold of Him.
00:02:26.700 | That's my first and main reason for being willing
00:02:32.060 | to say a few more words about this.
00:02:33.740 | I want to give God glory for being a keeping, holding God.
00:02:38.740 | The second reason why I'm willing to say another word
00:02:46.140 | about this experience is namely that God's keeping
00:02:51.200 | is manifest, so His divine act,
00:02:56.100 | His divine decisive keeping is manifest, shown, evident,
00:03:01.100 | precisely through our fighting to be kept.
00:03:07.780 | Now, make sure you hear that rightly.
00:03:12.540 | It's a little bit odd, so make sure you hear it rightly.
00:03:17.860 | Not the other way around.
00:03:19.480 | It's not that God is moved to keep us
00:03:24.200 | by our fighting to be kept.
00:03:26.280 | Are you with me?
00:03:27.460 | Let me say it again.
00:03:28.560 | It is not that God is moved to keep us
00:03:33.560 | by our initiative in fighting to be kept,
00:03:38.980 | but, let's turn it around now,
00:03:41.880 | that God moves us to fight to be kept,
00:03:47.720 | and thus, He keeps us.
00:03:49.900 | If that sounds perplexing to you,
00:03:52.300 | that's why I'm willing to talk about this again.
00:03:55.980 | 'Cause if you don't get this,
00:03:58.660 | you don't get the Christian life
00:04:01.100 | and how God sovereignly keeps His own.
00:04:04.500 | Now, first, the decisive thing to say
00:04:08.740 | about any Christian midlife crisis,
00:04:11.420 | I say Christian midlife crisis,
00:04:14.660 | is that God and God alone is the decisive one
00:04:19.280 | in getting us through,
00:04:21.200 | so that we remain faithful to Him for a lifetime.
00:04:25.800 | God may use a thousand things.
00:04:29.140 | I mean, He mentions genetics and stress and all that stuff.
00:04:32.360 | That's absolutely right.
00:04:33.400 | I mean, who can fathom all the reasons
00:04:36.880 | why we go up or down or why we come out,
00:04:39.960 | you know, go back?
00:04:41.960 | Who can fathom the practical horizontal effects
00:04:45.020 | that are at work, thousands of them, not just four.
00:04:47.980 | God may use a thousand things to keep us back
00:04:53.780 | from the cliff of pride and greed
00:04:58.780 | and sexual immorality and apostasy.
00:05:03.180 | But whatever the means, the horizontal means are,
00:05:08.940 | that we and others can see in our lives
00:05:12.120 | and the lives of others, whatever the means are,
00:05:14.940 | what is always decisive is the invisible power of God.
00:05:19.940 | The greatest benediction in all the Bible, mark this,
00:05:26.080 | the greatest benediction, I think,
00:05:28.740 | there may be another one greater, but I don't know of it,
00:05:31.140 | the greatest benediction in all the Bible
00:05:33.520 | is spoken in celebration of God's keeping.
00:05:39.000 | That's amazing.
00:05:39.840 | So here it is, "Now unto him who is able to keep you
00:05:44.600 | from stumbling and to present you blameless
00:05:47.800 | before the presence of his glory with great joy,
00:05:50.840 | to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ,
00:05:55.320 | our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion,
00:05:58.800 | authority before all time, now, forever, amen."
00:06:02.920 | I mean, that's stupendous.
00:06:05.400 | I mean, that's just over the top.
00:06:07.960 | What's he praising?
00:06:09.680 | He's praising, "He kept me.
00:06:11.760 | He just kept me."
00:06:15.360 | So, I mean, if you don't feel amazed
00:06:19.280 | that you woke up a Christian this morning,
00:06:21.600 | you don't get it.
00:06:22.920 | You just don't get it.
00:06:25.120 | Because if God hadn't kept you at 3 a.m.,
00:06:28.800 | you'd wake up at 6 a.m., an unbeliever.
00:06:32.240 | That's stupendous.
00:06:33.800 | Peter puts it like this,
00:06:36.280 | "Who by God's power are being kept
00:06:41.240 | through faith for a salvation
00:06:43.200 | ready to be revealed in the last time."
00:06:45.040 | How are we being kept?
00:06:47.000 | By God's power.
00:06:48.920 | How does it work?
00:06:50.840 | It works by awakening in us faith every morning.
00:06:55.040 | Or Paul, more than anyone else,
00:06:57.760 | bless him, love him, oh, I love Paul.
00:06:59.800 | More than anyone else felt the wonder
00:07:04.000 | and the force of God's keeping.
00:07:06.440 | 1 Corinthians 1.8, "He will sustain you to the end,
00:07:10.560 | guiltless in the day of Christ.
00:07:12.080 | God is faithful by whom you were called
00:07:16.120 | into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
00:07:19.080 | In other words, he keeps whom he calls.
00:07:21.880 | Or Philippians 1.6, "I am sure of this,
00:07:25.520 | that he who began a good work in you
00:07:28.640 | will bring it to completion at the day of Christ."
00:07:32.160 | He began it, he will finish it.
00:07:34.440 | You won't finish it, he will finish it decisively,
00:07:37.520 | and that's why you will finish it.
00:07:39.680 | Or 1 Corinthians 10.13, "God is faithful.
00:07:43.680 | He will not let you be tested beyond what you are able,
00:07:48.160 | but with the test, he will make a way of escape
00:07:51.520 | that you may be able to endure it."
00:07:53.960 | Don't miss the word endure.
00:07:55.880 | The escape from the test is through the enduring,
00:08:01.920 | and that is the work of God.
00:08:05.280 | So that's my first and main aim
00:08:07.560 | in looking at this issue of midlife crisis again,
00:08:10.560 | just to give God all the credit
00:08:13.680 | for every stitch of endurance and perseverance.
00:08:18.680 | But here's the other aim, namely to communicate clearly
00:08:23.760 | that God's keeping is manifest,
00:08:28.280 | shown precisely through our fighting to be kept.
00:08:33.280 | I'm gonna say it again, 'cause this is just so perplexing
00:08:38.680 | why people have a hard time getting this,
00:08:40.320 | and yet they do.
00:08:42.000 | God's keeping, God's decisive, sovereign keeping of his own,
00:08:47.000 | his children, is manifest.
00:08:49.600 | It works itself out, it is shown,
00:08:51.600 | it is evident in our lives,
00:08:53.360 | experientially, precisely through our fighting to be kept.
00:08:58.360 | If you are fighting to be kept, God is at work in you,
00:09:03.040 | and that's the key statement in say, 1 Corinthians 9, 26,
00:09:07.840 | Paul says, "I do not run aimlessly.
00:09:11.480 | I do not box as one beating the air.
00:09:15.560 | I pommel my body and keep it under control,
00:09:21.160 | lest after preaching to others,
00:09:24.760 | I myself should be disqualified."
00:09:28.560 | And it's amazing.
00:09:29.800 | Paul believed that if he let down his boxing guard,
00:09:34.760 | I mean, I don't know when people are gonna listen to this,
00:09:36.920 | but just three days ago,
00:09:38.160 | there was a big heavyweight boxing match.
00:09:40.880 | I saw the headlines, so I clicked on it.
00:09:43.640 | These people all paid, who knows, $100 for a line
00:09:46.560 | to get to watch this boxing match for 15 rounds,
00:09:48.880 | and it ends in 28 seconds.
00:09:51.400 | (laughs)
00:09:53.160 | I love it.
00:09:54.280 | Because this guy lets down,
00:09:55.920 | he lets down his guard and whammo, he's on the floor,
00:10:00.920 | knocked out in just a few seconds.
00:10:04.480 | And Paul believed, "If I let down my boxing guard
00:10:07.960 | for a moment, sin will deliver a knockout blow to me.
00:10:11.320 | It really will."
00:10:13.240 | And that's how God keeps Paul.
00:10:15.000 | He makes him a fighter.
00:10:16.960 | He says in Philippians 3, 12,
00:10:18.800 | "Not that I have already obtained this
00:10:20.800 | or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own.
00:10:25.400 | I press on, I press on to make it my own
00:10:28.480 | because Christ Jesus has made me his own."
00:10:31.760 | Beautiful.
00:10:32.600 | I press on, I lay hold of, why?
00:10:35.520 | I've been laid hold of.
00:10:37.240 | I've been taken.
00:10:38.720 | I'm in his hands.
00:10:40.080 | I'm just grasping what I've been grasped for.
00:10:43.720 | Yes, I really run the race, but he is running in me.
00:10:47.960 | Just like he says in 1 Corinthians 15, 10,
00:10:50.640 | "By the grace of God, I am what I am.
00:10:53.440 | His grace toward me was not in vain.
00:10:55.400 | On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them,
00:10:59.560 | though it was not I, but the grace of God was with me."
00:11:04.560 | So as I look back over my 30s and 40s,
00:11:09.400 | indeed, my 20s through my 70s,
00:11:12.360 | as I look back over my life, I have never stopped fighting.
00:11:17.360 | I don't remember any season.
00:11:19.600 | I don't remember a week.
00:11:21.880 | I wrote a whole book entitled "How to Fight for Joy."
00:11:25.360 | That's not an accident.
00:11:26.880 | (laughs)
00:11:28.600 | A whole book on how to fight for joy.
00:11:30.760 | When I don't desire God, how to fight for joy.
00:11:33.120 | I have never stopped fighting to tremble,
00:11:37.080 | fighting to tremble at God's severity.
00:11:40.400 | I have never stopped fighting to rejoice at God's kindness.
00:11:45.160 | I cannot remember missing a day
00:11:48.800 | that I was not in God's word and in prayer.
00:11:52.040 | I suspect there were some, okay?
00:11:53.680 | I'm not claiming any perfection.
00:11:55.640 | I just can't remember any.
00:11:57.120 | It's that much a part of my life.
00:12:01.360 | Every day is a day of pleading over the word
00:12:06.120 | that I would be kept and shaped
00:12:09.960 | according to the God I see in the Bible.
00:12:13.800 | And I've never tried to go it alone.
00:12:16.080 | I'll end with this.
00:12:17.520 | I've never tried to go it alone.
00:12:19.840 | It's easy to go it alone.
00:12:20.920 | It's easy just to, I mean, people are hard, right?
00:12:24.200 | People cause us the most problems.
00:12:25.880 | I mean, books, they're not a problem.
00:12:27.560 | People are a problem.
00:12:28.720 | But I know that's not right.
00:12:30.600 | I know that's not biblical.
00:12:33.080 | Hebrews 3:12, "Take care, brothers,
00:12:35.560 | lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief
00:12:38.440 | leading you to fall away from the living God."
00:12:40.920 | Well, how, how, how am I gonna take care?
00:12:43.240 | Here's the answer, verse 13,
00:12:44.880 | "Exhort one another every day,
00:12:48.760 | as long as it is called today,
00:12:50.720 | that none of you may be hardened
00:12:52.320 | by the deceitfulness of sin."
00:12:54.520 | So, here's my lesson.
00:12:56.840 | Trust God's sovereign keeping.
00:12:59.960 | And in that confidence, cut off your hands
00:13:03.440 | and tear out your eyes and fight for a greater joy
00:13:09.160 | than any sin could ever bring.
00:13:12.040 | - Yeah, amen.
00:13:12.880 | Fighting as a means of God's keeping.
00:13:15.120 | That is a really, really good point.
00:13:17.320 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:13:18.760 | And again, that earlier episode that I mentioned
00:13:20.760 | at the beginning, "My Midlife Crisis and Counsel for Yours,"
00:13:23.880 | that's episode number 1173 in the archive, 1173.
00:13:28.440 | You can find it at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:32.320 | Tocophobia is the fear of childbirth.
00:13:36.560 | It's the fear of the pain of childbirth
00:13:39.280 | and the fear of childbirth injury,
00:13:41.760 | both for baby and for mom.
00:13:43.360 | It's not uncommon.
00:13:44.560 | It's a question we get in the inbox regularly
00:13:47.600 | from a number of women.
00:13:49.040 | The prospect of parenthood can be alluring,
00:13:51.840 | but the pain of childbirth can be very unappealing as well.
00:13:54.880 | And on Monday, when we return,
00:13:56.400 | we're gonna look at whether or not
00:13:57.440 | this fear should be a deal breaker
00:13:59.120 | for a young couple that wants to be engaged.
00:14:02.280 | That's on Monday when we return.
00:14:04.240 | We'll see you then.
00:14:05.200 | (upbeat music)
00:14:07.800 | (upbeat music)
00:14:10.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]