Don’t Waste Your Life

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Today's question on the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:00:09.320 | is really a question for you.

00:00:11.460 | Yes, you.

00:00:12.920 | Are you wasting your life?

00:00:14.960 | Right now as I speak and as you listen,

00:00:17.040 | are you wasting away your life?

00:00:19.820 | Questions don't get more serious or sober than that

00:00:22.560 | and the stakes could not be higher.

00:00:24.560 | To put this more specifically,

00:00:26.080 | are you living to make much of God

00:00:28.080 | or are you living to make much of yourself?

00:00:31.600 | The answer to this question divides the course of humanity

00:00:34.560 | like the continental divide splits the course of the rivers.

00:00:38.240 | It's a question Pastor John asks frequently

00:00:40.560 | and it's one he raised in his conference message,

00:00:42.800 | The Essence of the Unwasted Life in March of 2008.

00:00:47.800 | Here's what he said.

00:00:49.360 | - There's this plant in some jungle somewhere

00:00:54.400 | and it flowers and there's a little pool

00:00:57.200 | of poisonous water down there

00:00:59.720 | and little bugs come up over the edge

00:01:02.600 | and at the top here it's slippery

00:01:04.640 | and they lose their footing and fall in and die

00:01:07.960 | and they feed the plant.

00:01:10.960 | Now that's interesting

00:01:14.040 | but that's not the interesting thing ultimately.

00:01:19.160 | The interesting thing ultimately is that there's a spider

00:01:23.240 | who only lives by dropping

00:01:28.240 | by his little silver cord down into this

00:01:33.920 | and plucking those little dead animals and eating them.

00:01:38.000 | Let us all bow down.

00:01:44.320 | And worship mindless matter.

00:01:51.720 | And natural selection.

00:01:55.120 | [audience laughing]

00:01:57.320 | I mean you just need to know where I'm coming from.

00:02:00.280 | When we get to the judgment seat

00:02:04.600 | and Mr. Dawkins and Hitchens and they all, they say,

00:02:11.320 | and God says, "Now what was that?

00:02:18.880 | "You said about the way that spider came into being

00:02:22.480 | "and the way humans came into being."

00:02:23.880 | And he said, "Well, we thought it was just nothing.

00:02:28.880 | "I mean just forces that just kind of,

00:02:33.600 | "it just, you know, happened."

00:02:37.640 | [audience laughing]

00:02:39.000 | And I think God's gonna look at me,

00:02:42.040 | he's gonna say, "Gah!"

00:02:43.560 | [audience laughing]

00:02:44.600 | He's just gonna laugh and the universe is gonna shake.

00:02:49.400 | I mean I really, I cannot, I cannot take it seriously.

00:02:54.320 | The universe exists to display the glory of God

00:02:57.520 | and therefore those who try to give an account

00:02:59.360 | for the universe that exists in a non-God way

00:03:02.160 | are not only laughable but they are blasphemous.

00:03:06.600 | This is God's story.

00:03:09.720 | The heavens are telling the glory of God.

00:03:12.400 | "Open your ears," he's saying.

00:03:14.880 | "It is all over the place

00:03:17.560 | "and we will give an account of whether we heard that word

00:03:22.400 | "or saw that glory."

00:03:25.040 | This is not fun and games here.

00:03:27.080 | This is God speaking to us.

00:03:29.680 | Now here I am, I'm down at a little hotel

00:03:31.720 | about 15 minutes that way, I'm a little,

00:03:33.320 | I don't know what they call it, cottage inn

00:03:34.800 | or something like that.

00:03:36.200 | And there's a swimming pool by the ocean.

00:03:39.080 | I thought that is ridiculous.

00:03:41.040 | [audience laughing]

00:03:43.760 | Look at that.

00:03:45.120 | It's about, you know, it's about the size of this stage,

00:03:47.680 | not quite, and I looked at the pool

00:03:51.000 | and then I looked up.

00:03:52.640 | [audience laughing]

00:03:54.360 | I thought, this is a man pool and that's a God pool.

00:03:59.360 | [audience laughing]

00:04:02.400 | It's everywhere.

00:04:04.720 | There are voices everywhere.

00:04:07.520 | Just open your eyes and open your ears

00:04:10.280 | and pray for the Holy Spirit to give you a sensitivity

00:04:13.720 | of what the wasted life would be,

00:04:16.840 | namely a life that doesn't see it,

00:04:19.240 | a life that doesn't hear it,

00:04:20.840 | and a life that isn't shaped by the meaning of the universe

00:04:25.600 | to display the glory of God.

00:04:27.520 | We are being called to join Him

00:04:30.040 | in His own self-glorification.

00:04:34.080 | Now that last statement is controversial

00:04:40.760 | and I need to support it for just a few minutes.

00:04:43.280 | This idea that Paul has that the unwasted life

00:04:48.320 | is a life in which he will, by life and death,

00:04:54.060 | make Christ look great because the universe exists

00:04:57.240 | to display God through His Son,

00:04:59.840 | that is not Paul's idea.

00:05:01.760 | That's God's idea for Paul,

00:05:05.600 | which means it's God's idea for the universe,

00:05:07.840 | which means God is very self-exalting.

00:05:11.040 | If God comes to you and you say to Him,

00:05:15.360 | why do I exist?

00:05:16.360 | And He says, to make much of me.

00:05:19.080 | You're hearing absolute truth

00:05:23.040 | and people really stumble over this truth.

00:05:27.320 | You exist to magnify me.

00:05:32.320 | Go about it and I will hold you accountable

00:05:35.120 | for whether you've done it or not.

00:05:38.200 | Text after text after text.

00:05:41.160 | Isaiah 43, six, bring my sons from afar

00:05:45.200 | and my daughters from the ends of the earth,

00:05:46.960 | everyone who is called by my name,

00:05:48.680 | whom I created for my glory.

00:05:50.880 | God created you for His glory,

00:05:53.260 | that is to make Him look glorious.

00:05:55.440 | He elected Israel for His glory.

00:05:57.640 | Jeremiah 13, 11, I made the whole house of Israel

00:06:00.760 | and the whole house of Judah.

00:06:02.080 | Cling to me that they might be for me a people,

00:06:04.960 | a name, a praise, and a glory.

00:06:07.360 | He saved them from Egypt for this same reason.

00:06:10.240 | Psalm 106, our fathers rebelled against the most high

00:06:14.200 | at the Red Sea, but He saved them for His namesake

00:06:19.200 | that He might make known His power.

00:06:21.680 | He rescued them from bondage in Babylon

00:06:26.360 | with these words, for my namesake, I defer my anger.

00:06:29.520 | For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you.

00:06:32.000 | For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it.

00:06:34.160 | How should my name be profane?

00:06:35.800 | My glory I will not give to another.

00:06:37.800 | And He sends Jesus Christ into the world

00:06:40.000 | for the same reason, Romans 15, 7.

00:06:42.240 | Christ became a servant to the circumcision

00:06:45.080 | to show God's truthfulness,

00:06:46.760 | and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God

00:06:49.320 | for His mercy.

00:06:50.520 | Christ came to earth that the Gentiles might glorify God

00:06:54.920 | for His mercy.

00:06:56.360 | Father, the hour has come.

00:06:59.620 | Glorify Thy Son that the Son may glorify Thee.

00:07:03.720 | And He's coming back at the end for the same reason,

00:07:06.480 | 2 Thessalonians 1.

00:07:08.040 | He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints

00:07:11.040 | and to be marveled at by all who have believed.

00:07:13.480 | He's coming to be glorified.

00:07:15.240 | He's coming to be marveled at.

00:07:17.280 | This truth that God is constantly, unwaveringly,

00:07:24.500 | in all that He does, exalting His Son,

00:07:28.520 | magnifying His glory,

00:07:32.520 | is vastly more loving than if He devoted Himself

00:07:36.880 | to help you like what you see in the mirror.

00:07:40.600 | If God were to make Himself a means

00:07:44.400 | to your self-exaltation,

00:07:46.720 | He would be a global distraction

00:07:51.040 | from what would make you happy.

00:07:54.360 | You know what love is?

00:07:56.520 | It's not what the world says it is.

00:07:58.280 | The world says, "Somebody loves me

00:08:01.080 | if they make much of me."

00:08:02.480 | And that feels so good, it's hard not to believe.

00:08:07.720 | Somebody loves me if they make much of me.

00:08:10.480 | But in that relationship, you are the end.

00:08:15.360 | And He's the means.

00:08:18.200 | He makes much of me.

00:08:19.200 | That's not what love is in the Bible.

00:08:22.720 | In the Bible, love labors, sacrifices,

00:08:28.480 | and even dies to liberate you from your bondage

00:08:33.480 | to the mirror so that you can delight in God forever.

00:08:40.440 | You're selling your soul for a bowl of oatmeal

00:08:47.520 | when you want God to just meet your earthly needs

00:08:53.400 | and call that love.

00:08:56.200 | That's not love.

00:08:58.300 | Love is when God does that or not

00:09:01.740 | in ways that bring you free

00:09:04.460 | from your love affair with yourself

00:09:06.260 | and free you to enjoy making much of Him forever.

00:09:09.340 | You were made to know and love God.

00:09:12.540 | You know this is true.

00:09:14.100 | You stand by the seacoast.

00:09:15.700 | You stand by the edge of the Grand Canyon.

00:09:18.940 | You stand with your eye to a telescope,

00:09:21.060 | the Hubble telescope pictures or whatever.

00:09:23.340 | You stand there and you find your soul

00:09:25.580 | drawn out of yourself and for a brief moment,

00:09:28.980 | you are free from self-consciousness and self-absorption

00:09:32.540 | and it is the most full, satisfying, deep, wonderful moment

00:09:36.580 | and it will be forever if God is the universe

00:09:39.500 | and God is the Grand Canyon and God is the ocean.

00:09:42.260 | That's why you were made.

00:09:43.420 | God would be unloving if He did not magnify Himself

00:09:47.340 | in your presence over and over and over.

00:09:49.740 | If He did not command you to praise me,

00:09:51.740 | praise me, praise me, He would not love you.

00:09:54.660 | If He said, I praise you, I praise you, I praise you,

00:09:57.300 | He would satisfy that little teeny ego of yours

00:09:59.580 | and you would perish and your soul would shrink up

00:10:02.260 | like a peach at the back of the refrigerator.

00:10:04.700 | You know that's not what you're made for.

00:10:06.620 | You're made to know something vastly greater.

00:10:10.900 | - Amen, that clip came from a conference message

00:10:13.220 | titled The Essence of the Unwasted Life

00:10:15.740 | which was preached on March 28th, 2008.

00:10:18.580 | You can find the full message at desiringgod.org.

00:10:21.100 | You can download the book as well,

00:10:22.780 | Don't Waste Your Life from the website.

00:10:25.500 | Click on the book tabs and look for the title,

00:10:27.780 | Don't Waste Your Life.

00:10:30.100 | So this is a strong point.

00:10:31.660 | Love is God freeing us from our love affair with ourselves,

00:10:35.940 | freeing us to enjoy making much of Him forever

00:10:39.020 | and God would be unloving

00:10:40.380 | if He did not manifest His glory to us

00:10:42.700 | and take our breath away like the sight of the Grand Canyon

00:10:46.380 | over and over and over again.

00:10:49.340 | But this point raises a question

00:10:51.140 | that has popped up over the years.

00:10:53.260 | Yes, but doesn't God in seeking to glorify Himself

00:10:57.020 | also make much of us?

00:10:59.100 | It's a good follow-up question

00:11:00.260 | Pastor John has sought to address over the recent years

00:11:02.820 | and tomorrow we'll hear from him when I ask,

00:11:04.940 | does God delight in me?

00:11:07.700 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, we'll see you tomorrow.

00:11:10.060 | (upbeat music)

00:11:12.660 | (upbeat music)

00:11:15.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Don’t Waste Your Life

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