Don't Waste Your Life (Part 2) - John Piper

Don't Waste Your Life (Part 1) - John Piper
Don't Waste Your Life (Part 2) - John Piper
Don't Waste Your Life (Part 3) - John Piper

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Don't Waste Your Life

Day 2 of 3

 

Guest:                          John Piper

 

From the Series:         Glorifying God From Your Wealth 

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Bob:                If you really understand and embrace the realities of the Christian faith, it will change your life.  Here is Dr. John Piper.

 

John:              It seems to me that in this global village of ours, those who have any sense of reality at all know if Christianity is real, it's worth dying for.  If it's not real, then let's not even talk about it.  So, absolutely, I think we need to be straight up with young people and say, "Look, are you going to give your life and lay it down for Jesus or are you just going to play games?"  And nobody is out there saying, "What I really want to do with my life is play games."

 

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, July 27th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Is your Christian faith worth dying for?  Is it worth living for?  Stay with us.

 

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  A couple of songs I remember from the 1960s.  You know, I always kind of – we talk about a program, and I always think of a song – you remember the song, "Alfie?"  Do you know that song?

 

Dennis:          Well, I couldn't sing it, but I remember it.

 

Bob:                "What's it all about, Alfie, is it just for the moment we live?  What's it all about?  Wouldn't you sort it out, Alfie?  Are we meant to take more than we give or are we meant to be kind and if only fools are kind, Alfie" – it keeps going on and on.  That was kind of an existential, philosophical – Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote that.  They were – and then there was this other one – remember Peggy Lee?  She had this song about life, and she'd experienced the house burnt down one time, and she looked at the ashes, and she looked up, and she said, "Is that all there is?"  If that's all there is, my friend, then let's keep dancing.  Let's break out the booze and a have a ball, if that's all. 

 

                        You know, they were talking about some pretty heavy themes back there in the '60s.  They needed John Piper who could have told them what's it all about and that this is not all there is.

 

Dennis:          Well, you know, you're going to like John Piper, Bob, because in his book he quotes a Bob Dylan song called "Blowin' in the Wind."  "How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?  Yes, and how many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?  Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows" …

 

Bob:                [mimicking Bob Dylan] "that too many people have died?  The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind."

 

                        I thought I'd throw in a little Bob Dylan.

 

Dennis:          And those who know him can make their own judgments about that.

 

John:              It was pretty good.

 

Dennis:          Was it good, John?  

 

Bob:                [as Bob Dylan] Thank you.

 

Dennis:          But as John points out, you know, think about that – the answer is blowing in the wind?  I mean, what a great place to look for a solution to life, huh?

 

Bob:                In the wind.

 

John:              Well, there are two ways to take that.  I took it both despairingly and hopefully because he said "the answer."  I mean, today, nobody believes there is such a thing in this post-modern age, there is no "the answer" blowing anywhere – wind or Bible.  And the fact that he would say "the answer is blowin' in the wind," held up to me, as a young person in those days, I'm hungry for the answer.  I'm hungry for the answer.  And so there was at least an echo of confidence, of objectivity there, and in those existentialist days, and our days are not any different, even moreso, anybody that believes in there is "the answer" is in a minority.  He's in a minority, and I want to get around him and say, "I believe that, too."  That's my only hope.  If there is no "the answer" then life really is empty.

 

Bob:                You don't think he'd been reading John, chapter 3, where Jesus says, "the wind blows wherever it will, and the answer is here, and the spirit moves" …

 

John:              I would like to think that.

 

Dennis:          He would love to believe that.  Well, the author of this book, don't waste your life, is John Piper.  He is the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and, John, increasingly you are writing for a generation of college students and young professionals, I believe, who drink deeply from your writings because I think they're fed up with the culture of tolerance and political correctness and the lack of absolutes, and you're talking about absolutes here that rock their world in your book, "Don't Waste Your Life."  

 

                        In fact, in your book, you actually call these young men and women and all of us to be ready to give our lives for our faith.  I mean, that's a radical absolute that we would be willing to give our lives for our faith in Jesus Christ.

 

John:              You know, it's hard not to issue that call where you read, as I read an article about the Christians in Sudan.  Choose life or choose Christ; that is, you're going to be threatened and perhaps killed for just talking about mobs of people who circulate in Southern Sudan, take people and say, "Are you a Christian or are you not?"  If it's...