Three Strategies for Overcoming the Superficial Life
00:00:00.000 | Well, how do we break free from triviality in order to cultivate habits of deep thinking
00:00:09.320 | and all for the sake of increasing our delight in God?
00:00:13.880 | It's a question that comes to us from a podcast listener named Michael.
00:00:17.400 | "Hello Pastor John, how do you think deeply when you have created by whichever way a superficial
00:00:23.840 | manner of thinking that skirts matters and gets bored before you have gotten to any real
00:00:28.800 | depth?
00:00:30.440 | And if you do get bored, how can you challenge yourself to still engage with a matter or
00:00:35.080 | a biblical passage without feeling blasé?"
00:00:39.520 | Michael has given half the answer to his question, I think.
00:00:45.640 | He has said, "How do you think deeply when you have created a superficial manner of thinking?"
00:00:55.380 | This is really a huge part of the answer to the last half of his question, namely, what
00:01:00.440 | do you do if you get bored before you even engage with the biblical passage long enough
00:01:06.520 | to see anything profound?
00:01:08.360 | And the answer to that second half of the question is addressed in the first half, namely,
00:01:13.500 | the more basic superficial mindset needs to be reversed.
00:01:20.080 | That superficial mindset that has built up over time needs to be undone, reversed.
00:01:27.660 | And I think this is a very perceptive question and touches on an issue that is epidemic among
00:01:35.560 | human beings in general, in every age and perhaps more than ever in our age of ever
00:01:43.800 | present distraction by superficial input from every manner of media.
00:01:49.400 | The epidemic I'm talking about is the tragic loss of wonder and amazement and all joyful
00:01:59.920 | discovery of beauties and glories in the world and in the word and in our own selves, the
00:02:05.880 | loss of it.
00:02:07.120 | Human beings really are glorious creatures, a little less than God, the psalmist says,
00:02:14.160 | in the image of God, full of potential to know God and to know things the way God knows
00:02:19.880 | them and feel with the affections that even God has in his own heart.
00:02:26.920 | And yet we are, as one author put it, glorious ruins.
00:02:33.640 | We have fallen.
00:02:35.200 | And one of the great evidences of our fall is that we are so easily bored with glorious
00:02:42.240 | reality.
00:02:43.960 | We go to visit the magnificent Rockies or Alps or Himalayas and for a day or two, we
00:02:50.880 | are breathless with amazement.
00:02:53.860 | And by the end of the week, we're sitting in front of the television in our chalet on
00:02:57.920 | top of the mountain, watching pitiful human cinematic efforts to create amazement.
00:03:04.360 | That's just who we are.
00:03:05.480 | It's tragic.
00:03:06.480 | It's the great tragic effect of the fall, superficiality in a world of wonder, easy
00:03:14.320 | boredom, loving something for two, three repetitions and then after that, oh hum.
00:03:20.280 | So Michael is not alone in this entanglement with small trifling, trivial, empty, insignificant,
00:03:30.680 | silly input from every side.
00:03:33.880 | And the question is, how do you rebuild a mindset that might wake up to the sleepwalking
00:03:44.120 | of silliness that postures as meaningful life?
00:03:48.060 | The first thing you do is repent and confess to God that this is a huge problem and involves
00:03:54.560 | much sin.
00:03:56.920 | Then you cry out to God for help that he would wake you up from the slumbers of emptiness
00:04:04.520 | and meaninglessness and boredom in the endless quest to be titillated in body while the soul
00:04:11.640 | is languishing and starving for greatness.
00:04:15.520 | So you cry out for help to God.
00:04:19.600 | And then you set yourself on a conscious quest to obey God's strategy for cultivating a spiritual
00:04:28.960 | mind that is fully alert to the glories of God, radiant in the world and radiant in the
00:04:35.800 | word.
00:04:37.080 | You make Colossians 3, 1 to 3, your marching orders.
00:04:42.400 | If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ
00:04:49.440 | is seated at the right hand of God.
00:04:52.560 | Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth for you have
00:04:59.040 | died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
00:05:02.720 | So you pray that God would cause you to be stunned by the meaning of those verses and
00:05:09.600 | be disciplined in the pursuit of that new mindset of setting your minds on things that
00:05:16.840 | are above.
00:05:17.840 | Then you go over to Philippians 4, verse 8 to get specific and you realize the challenge
00:05:25.000 | before you.
00:05:26.000 | Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is
00:05:31.200 | pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything
00:05:38.240 | worthy of praise, think about these things.
00:05:42.920 | In other words, Paul is calling us to discipline the focus of our minds so that we fix the
00:05:51.200 | mind, the focus of the mind on things that are worthy and that have the potential to
00:05:56.720 | deepen and strengthen and purify our souls.
00:06:01.640 | The specifics that I would recommend would be these.
00:06:06.840 | First that you be part of a local church where the preaching is blood earnest and serious,
00:06:14.160 | where God besotted joy and not flippant silliness marks the wonders of the word of God.
00:06:23.040 | That's first.
00:06:24.040 | Second, I would look carefully at my friendships.
00:06:28.560 | Who am I spending time with?
00:06:30.680 | And I would remember first Corinthians 15 33 do not be deceived.
00:06:36.640 | Bad company ruins good morals.
00:06:42.240 | Superficiality is a very, very, very contagious disease.
00:06:47.420 | If you only hang out with superficial people, you will almost certainly be superficial.
00:06:54.060 | If you only hang out with superficial social media and TV programs, you will almost certainly
00:07:00.160 | be a superficial person.
00:07:03.160 | On the other hand, Proverbs 13 20 says, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.
00:07:12.520 | Oh, that's so good.
00:07:15.200 | Psalm 1 1963 says, I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts.
00:07:24.780 | And Hebrews 10 24 says, let us consider, think about, ponder, consider how to stir up one
00:07:32.560 | another to love.
00:07:34.680 | Love is the greatest thing in all the universe if we understand what God understands by love.
00:07:42.280 | And the last thing I would say is read, read, read the great dead Puritan writers whose
00:07:52.560 | works are unlike anything you will find in the 20th and 21st century because they are
00:07:58.920 | so non superficial, non silly, non trivial, non man centered.
00:08:05.000 | The works of Jonathan Edwards and John Owen and Jeremiah Burroughs and John Bunyan and
00:08:09.720 | JC Ryle and Charles Spurgeon, John Newton.
00:08:13.840 | I'm thinking of you, Tony.
00:08:16.360 | John Newton.
00:08:17.360 | A steady diet of these authors will go a long way to reversing a superficial mindset
00:08:27.960 | and replacing it with a deeply joyful mind ready to discover wonders and be amazed everywhere
00:08:36.800 | we look.
00:08:38.120 | So these authors, I think, will drive us back to the Word of God with eyes that are able
00:08:45.880 | to see the glories that God really did put there.
00:08:50.200 | Amen.
00:08:51.200 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:52.920 | And thanks for mentioning John Newton.
00:08:54.520 | As many of you know, I'm not really a podcast host.
00:08:58.520 | I don't know what I'm doing.
00:08:59.520 | I'm actually a writer and an author.
00:09:02.240 | And this was an allusion to my book, John Newton on the Christian Life.
00:09:06.080 | Thank you for the mention, Pastor John.
00:09:08.200 | John Newton on the Christian Life.
00:09:09.200 | I wrote that back in 2015.
00:09:11.540 | If you cannot get enough of the Ask Pastor John podcast, you can join our many listeners
00:09:16.120 | by subscribing to our audio feeds and search our episode archive and even reach us by email
00:09:20.520 | with a question of your own.
00:09:21.520 | You can do all of this through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:28.200 | Well Friday we close the week with a personal question for you, Pastor John.
00:09:31.280 | A listener named Tim from the UK, he wants to press into all of this joy talk that we
00:09:35.880 | have and he wants to know, is John Piper happy?
00:09:40.800 | That's putting it rather bluntly.
00:09:42.960 | And is the question on the table next time?
00:09:44.720 | I'm your host Tony Renke and we'll see you then.
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