(upbeat music) Welcome back to the podcast on this Wednesday. As many of you know, I don't only produce this podcast, I also write books. And back in 2011, I was honored to write my very first book called Lit on the topic of book reading, one of my passions, and answering the questions, why do we read books anyways, and how can we read them better, things like that.

And in my research stage for the book, I set aside one full day for one purpose, to ransack the vast John Piper archive of online content, to collect everything that he's ever said on the topic of reading. And I found quite a lot actually, including one amazing quote from Pastor John back in 1981.

And I wanna share with you that quote today, quote, "What I've learned from about 20 years of serious reading "is this," Piper said, "is that sentences change my life, not books. "What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, "some powerful challenge, "some resolution to a longstanding dilemma.

"And these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. "I do not remember 99% of what I read, "but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember "is life-changing insight, "then I don't begrudge the 99%." I love that quote, it's an amazing find obviously. And that went in my 2011 book.

The quote itself was buried in a now 40-year-old manuscript, I mean, really buried. The moment I found it, I remember running an online search and couldn't find any reference to this quote on any websites or blogs or in any published books or in any social media. I mean, there was no audio recording of the message either.

It was buried. All we had was the written manuscript at DesiringGod.org. It was either not recorded or the message recording got lost to time. So we thought until very recently, well, it was recorded and we just found the audio recording from 1981, it's now online for the first time ever at DesiringGod.org.

And I get the honor today of unveiling that recording to you on APJ. Here's the setting. In 1981, a young Pastor John Piper wanted to instill hope in his Sunday school teachers of his church. Those teachers get one hour with kids and then the rest of the week, those kids just watch hour after hour of television.

So isn't it hopeless to think that one hour of Sunday school can accomplish anything lasting in these young lives so saturated with other media all week long? No. And here's why. - I've heard often the contrast made between spending an hour in Sunday school once a week and watching television about 20 hours a week.

And the implication or the point that's usually made is that there's scarcely any hope that in this one hour on Sunday morning, we can counteract the fairly secularist humanist viewpoint that is whether overtly or covertly ministered through the television set. That sort of observation creates what I call quantitative hopelessness.

It gives the impression that life changing impact and influence is directly proportionate to the quantity of time spent under a particular influence. And I think that this way of assessing the value of influences on our young people as well as ourselves as adults is wrong for two reasons. I think it's wrong first because it obscures the problem with evil.

And then secondly, I think it's wrong because it obscures the power of a holy moment. And I'll try to explain what I mean by each of those two mistakes. First of all, it obscures this quantitative way of thinking. Obscures the problem with evil in the world. It gives the misleading impression that the approach to take towards harmful influences, say on television, is to balance them with good influence.

That seems to be the approach. And so it assumes that the best or the only way to counteract the hours which we spend being entertained by the world and being taught to love the world is to spend a corresponding quantity of time being entertained or taught by God or God's people so as to balance out the evil influences.

And the underlying assumption to that assumption seems to be that either it's okay or inevitable that our kids or ourselves will in fact entertain ourselves with secularist TV programs or unedified TV programs. I don't think either of those is the case. I don't think it's inevitable and I don't think it's okay.

First of all, I don't think it's okay to entertain ourselves with what we would judge to be unedifying TV programs. Paul taught that we ought to do only those things which build up rather than tear down. And I have the feeling that many people in the church don't assess right and wrong on that continuum.

They ask, "Oh, there's nothing wrong here. They're not doing anything wrong." When really what they ought to be saying is, is it edifying, building me up, making me a better Christian, a better person? Because Paul seemed to think that that's what the goal or the aim of all of life should be, not just finding those things that we can judge to be not very harmful.

I would say that it's true that most TV programs are not edified. The few that I see when I see them don't seem to me to be the kind that would leave me at the end of the program rejoicing more in God, being more inclined to obey Him, feeling stronger affection for Christ, more zealous to do good.

They just don't. Now, the second reason why I think it's wrong just to assess Sunday school quantitatively and say, "Well, one hour, what's one hour of Sunday school against 20 hours of TV or school or whatever?" The second reason that's a problem and we ought not to use it is because it either overlooks or obscures the value of a holy moment.

And what I have in mind here is tremendously encouraging for teachers, but all those involved in any kind of counsel or advice or ministry of any sort, I think it includes all of us. This holy moment is what I would call the immeasurable moment. What the quantitative approach overlooks or obscures is the lasting transforming power of an insight, an insight that can come in a moment and change a life forever.

That's what I mean by the immeasurable moment. The impact of a given moment because of a word spoken can be all out of proportion to the amount of time it takes to do it. What I've learned from about 20 years of serious reading, I say 20, it hasn't been quite 20, that takes me back to 15 years old.

I didn't start to read until I was about 17. I hated to read until I was in a junior high school. So I started reading seriously though. I got real serious about reading and I've been serious about reading ever since. So there's been about 20 years I've been reading.

And what I have learned is this, it is sentences that change your life, not books. I don't know if that's been your experience, but I think for the most part, that's the case. What changes a life is a new glimpse into reality or truth or some powerful challenge that comes to us or some resolution of a long standing dilemma that we've had.

And most of those, the insight, the challenge or the resolution are usually embodied in a very short little space, a paragraph or a sentence and wham, it hits home. And we remember it and it affects us for our whole life long. I do not remember 99% of what I read.

That may just be me because I have a lousy memory. I think it's pretty typical. I don't remember 99% of what I read. But if the 1% is life changing insight into reality, I won't begrudge the 99%. I'll suffer that and accept it as my own frailty. Usually for me, life changing insight, and I have been changed by reading, comes in a moment, in a paragraph, in a sentence, not in a book.

I don't remember books whole. Now here's some examples of immeasurable moments in my life from reading. You know who I'm going to start with first? Jonathan Edwards wrote 70, or is it 73 resolutions when he was in college, lifetime resolutions. And I have never forgotten number six, resolved to live with all my might while I do live.

I've never forgotten. That sentence has meant more to me than thousands of other sentences that I've ever read. Live with all your might while you live. Don't just drift through life, limp through life, live. Number two, in his religious affection, he said, "True religion is in great measure, consists in great measure in holy affections." I had never read a book, it's about 400 pages or so, and I don't remember most of what's in it, but I'd never read a book that showed that true religion consists very much in holy affections.

Now that's just his 18th century word for emotions. I had been brought up to think, fact, faith, feeling, fact, faith, feeling, fact, faith, feeling. Keep it in that order. And the feeling drops off the end, it's just a caboose, you won't miss anything anyway. That isn't true. The New Testament shot through with demands that are so radical that they do demand joy, peace, hope, gratitude.

I hesitate to mention love because you'd all come up and say, "Love's not a feeling, love's not a feeling." But if you read 1 Corinthians 13 and how it's defined, you can get away from the fact that love is not only a feeling, but is at least partly a feeling.

For example, love is not jealous. Jealousy is a feeling. And if you love, you don't have that feeling. So that was another staggering sentence, an immeasurable moment to hear Jonathan Edwards say and defend true religion in great part consists in holy affections. St. Paul, now of course the Bible is just full of such sentences, but I'll just mention one because it might tip you off and help you understand me and a lot of my preaching.

I wonder what sentence you think I would pick out of St. Paul as the immeasurable moment that stands out above all others from 1968 to the present. It's Philippians 2.12 and 13. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you to will and to do His good pleasure.

That sentence hit me my freshman year in seminary like a load of bricks because all of Paul's theology is in it just about. That intermingling of the sovereign work of God in our lives with our effort. You work for He is working to will and to do. Next person, C.S.

Lewis. This sentence, the first page of his weight of glory. If we consider the unblessing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased. That sentence along with several others converted me into being what I've called a Christian hedonist. Namely, that what Jesus wants from us is not the cessation of the desire to be happy but the heightening of the desire to be happy until it's so intense we won't be satisfied with anything but God as the fulfillment of our joy.

Then finally on reading St. Augustine, two sentences from the confessions. I first read the confessions of Augustine as a sophomore in college, I think. It was in Western world literature. I can't remember when I took that course but my first or second year in college and two sentences have shaped me very greatly.

One, I have no hope at all but in the great mercy, in thy great mercy, grant what thou commandest and command what thou will. Grant what thou commandest and command what thou will. It's really the same as Philippians 2, 12 and 13 but stated very, very powerfully. The impact it had was to show me that the book I was reading at the time, Joseph Fletcher's Situation Ethics was wrong because Fletcher argued love cannot involve feelings because it's commanded.

You can't command emotions, therefore love must be in action and therefore it doesn't involve any feelings. That's not right. There's a theological mistake in Fletcher's argument, namely the assumption that God can't command what we can't give without his help. But he can command what we can't give without his help because he can give the help.

And Augustine says, grant what thou commandest and command what thou will. The context in the confessions was sexual continency. Augustine was a raunchy man. He was very polluted sexually before he became a Christian. And after he became a Christian, his problem with sexual temptation did not end. And he was talking about sexual continency, containing himself and not being illicit in his sexual relations.

And he said, I cannot do it. Grant what thou commandest, then command what thou will. And then the other sentence that he said, I didn't see this one until, I can't remember when it was, but I have always struggled with the problem of how to love a sunset, a wife, a child, chocolate ice cream, popcorn, et cetera, and not have that compete with my allegiance to God.

I don't know if you've ever struggled with that. How can you stand before a beautiful painting or a sunset and say, that is beautiful, I love it, and not have God look down and say, hey, you're supposed to love me, not that. And here's what Augustine said. For he loves thee too little who loves anything together with thee, which he loves not for thy sake.

That was an immeasurable moment when I read that sentence. He loves thee too little who loves anything together with thee that he loves not for thy sake. That bears a lot of pondering, doesn't it? We can love people, things, sunsets, food, for Jesus' sake. That's the end of my list.

It could go on and on and on. The point is, life-changing moments come in sentences and paragraphs, not in long, long remembrances of old books. Lights go on, our hearts are strangely warm, and experience comes of an immeasurable moment, and we are changed decisively. - Amazing, I love the testimony of life-changing sentences.

The immeasurable moment, the immeasurable moment. I just shared most of the whole recording, but if you wanna hear the whole thing, you can find it now online for the first time at desiringgod.org. Piper delivered it to his Sunday school teachers on July 13th, 1981, in a message titled Quantitative Hopelessness and the Immeasurable Moment.

And a big shout out to John Osborne and Nathan Olson, two DG staff members who find and get these lost recordings online for us. Well done to you, John and Nathan. Thank you for your work. Friday, we return to address another mature theme, particularly the topic of sexual sin.

It's a heavy episode. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John. Then we'll see you Friday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)