(upbeat music) - We recently talked about the book you just wrote, Pastor John, back on Thursday of last week. You gave us a personal update. In light of that, Brandon in Charlotte, North Carolina writes in to ask this. Pastor John, thank you for your Christ-centered precision and for the tremendous volume of your ministry output.

I'm curious how you produce so much content. What time do you wake up? How do you find time to read and write? When do you eat your cereal? I mean, you mentioned your aversion to TV and don't waste your life, but what advice do you have for the daily schedule making to make the most of your life for Christ?

- I think the first thing that I should say is beware of wanting to be like me. You don't know the sins of my life. You don't know how much I have neglected. You don't know what the costs have been. The real question is how to be the fullest, most God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, loving, humble, mission-advancing, justice-seeking, others-serving person you, you can be.

Don't measure yourself by others. Measure yourself by your potential in Christ. That's the first thing that I felt I had to say because of the way the question seemed to be posed. Now, there are a lot of other things to say. Let me tick 'em off. The second thing I would say is give 10% of your focus in life to avoiding obstacles to productivity, and 90% of your focus to fastening onto great goals and pursuing them with all your might.

Very few people become productive by avoiding obstacles to productivity. It's not a good focus. That's not where energy comes from. It's not where vision comes from. People write books about that and make a lot of money, but that's not where anybody gets anything worthwhile done. Getting things done that count come from great, glorious, wonderful future possibilities that take you captive and draw your pursuit with all your might, and then all that other stuff about getting obstacles out of your way.

That's the 10% of broomwork that you have to do. Third thing I wanna say. Life comes to us in chapters that are very different from each other. If you are married and have little children, that's a chapter that needs a great deal of focus on the children. If God wills, there may be another chapter for you with different possibilities, different potentials, and different priorities.

The Lord will be pleased if you focus on the chapter you're in and live according to the demands of that chapter with all your might. Fourth thing to say. Give serious thought and prayer to what your big, all-consuming life goal is. The biblical expression of mine is found in Philippians 1:20.

"It is my eager expectation." This is John Piper, not just Paul talking. "It is my eager expectation and hope "that I will not at all be ashamed, "but that with full courage." Now, as always, "Christ will be magnified in my body, "whether by life or by death, "for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." So Christ magnified in living and dying, spreading a passion for that Christ into the lives of others.

That's the goal. That's the big, overarching goal. So find yours and make it work in everything you do. Fifth, get a sense of gospel-rooted accountability before the living God. That is, understand the gospel and the spiritual dynamics of how it works. You don't labor to get into a right relationship with God.

The gospel dynamics don't work that way. You labor morning till night with all your might because you are in a right relationship with God. Philippians 2, "Work out your salvation "with fear and trembling, "for ground, basis, foundation, God is at work in you." That's the gospel dynamic. "By the grace of God, I am what I am, "and His grace towards me was not in vain.

"But on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, "but it was not I. "The grace of God had already taken up residence in me "and was at work in me." And if you get that order out of whack, you may accomplish a lot in life and go straight to hell with all your books and all your buildings.

Let the Lord Jesus intensify this sense of accountability on the last day with the parable of the talents, right? Gave to one person five, gave to another person two, gave to another person one, came to call a count, and the person with one heard those awful words. You wicked and lazy servant.

I don't wanna hear that word. I do not want to hear that word. I want to experience the opposite, the counterpart to those words from Luke 12. "Who then is the faithful and wise manager "whom his master will set over his household?" I often thought those words when I was a pastor.

I was over a household. "To give them their portion of food at the proper time. "Blessed is that servant whom his master "will find so doing when he comes." I would be sitting preparing my messages or writing something or leading the family in devotions or something, and I would say, "Come now, Lord Jesus, and you'll find me doing it." That's the opposite of wicked, lazy servant, buried your talent and didn't do anything with it.

So that's number five. Number six, add to your sense of accountability before God a sense of urgency. "We must do the works of him who sent us while it is day. "Night is coming when no one will work," John 9, 4. Or Ephesians 5, "Look carefully how you walk, "not as unwise, make redeeming," literally redeeming, the time because the days are evil, or Colossians 4, "Walk in wisdom towards those outside, "make the best use of the time." There's urgency in this.

The days are evil and night is coming. Seventh, do what you do with all your heart. Be done with half-heartedness. Oh, so many people limp through life doing what they do with half of a heart, half of their energy. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing with your whole soul.

Ecclesiastes 9, 10, "Whatever your hand finds to do, "do it with your might." Jonathan Edwards' resolution, oh, probably had more impact on me in the last 30 years than anything else he said in his resolutions, at least, when he said, "Resolved to live with all my might while I live." Those words took hold of me a long time ago.

Oh, yes, Lord. The opposite, the opposite of this, 14 times in the book of Proverbs, the word sluggard is used. Isn't that an ugly word? Sluggard. 14 times, and what's a sluggard? Chapter 20, verse 4, "The sluggard does not plow in the autumn, "and he will seek at harvest and have nothing." You don't wanna be a sluggard.

Number eight, "Many chops fell a huge tree." Man, this is so crucial because of how quickly we get discouraged after a thousand chops and the tree's not down yet. I just finished listening to Robinson Crusoe. You may say, "What in the world, "what job, I've been listening to a teenage novel "for a, I've never heard some of these classics, "so I'm listening to 'em." Robinson Crusoe, marooned on an island, all by himself, wants to escape, needs a boat.

Mainland is 45 miles away, might be cannibals over there, and not sure he wants to go, but he needs a boat. He's got nothing else to do, so he's gonna make a boat. He finds a tree. This tree is five feet, 10 inches, I think, across at the bottom.

He has an ax. It takes him, it takes him 22 days to chop this tree down, 14 more days to chop the branches off, a year and a half to finish the boat with an ax. I'd chop on a tree for a day or two days and say, "This tree's not coming down.

"I'm done with this tree. "I'm gonna go work on some little tree." So there's the key, many chops fell a big tree. Well, you wanna do something great? Don't quit, keep chopping. Number nine, I got two more. Number nine, be willing to do many things in life cheerfully that at first you don't wanna do.

They don't come naturally to you. There is no worthwhile role in life that does not require you to do things you don't at first feel like doing or that only let you do what comes naturally. So be cheerful, be cheerful in doing the parts of your life that you do not at first prefer to do.

And lastly, number 10, I should push it to make it 10 so it'd be a nice round number. Lastly, find your niche. That is, find the thing you do love to do with all your weaknesses and all your strengths. Put most of your energies and your love there for Christ and His kingdom.

- Wow, that is very helpful. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the counsel. I've jotted down a number of these points for my own takeaway from my own life. Thank you, and thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with author and longtime pastor, John Piper.

For more information about the podcast, go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We will return tomorrow and I'll ask John Piper if joy is something we fight for or if joy is something we wait for. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)