DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 1 3/31/09 3:24 PM Books By John PiPer God’s Passion for His Glory The Pleasures of God Desiring God The Dangerous Duty of Delight Future Grace A Hunger for God Let the Nations Be Glad! A Godward Life Pierced by the Word Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ The Legacy of Sovereign Joy The Hidden Smile of God The Roots of Endurance The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God The Innkeeper The Prodigal’s Sister Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood What’s the Difference? The Justification of God Counted Righteous in Christ Brothers, We Are Not Professionals The Supremacy of God in Preaching Beyond the Bounds Don’t Waste Your Life The Passion of Jesus Christ Life as a Vapor A God-Entranced Vision of All Things When I Don’t Desire God Sex and the Supremacy of Christ Taste and See Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die God Is the Gospel Contending for Our All What Jesus Demands from the World C R O S S W A Y B O O K S W H E A T O N , I L L I N O I S Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 2 3/31/09 3:24 PM C R O S S W A Y B O O K S W H E A T O N , I L L I N O I S Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 3 3/31/09 3:24 PM Don’t Waste Your Life (Group Study Edition) Copyright © 2007 by Desiring God Foundation Published by Crossway Books a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187 This Group Study Edition is based on and is a companion to Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper (Crossway Books, 2003). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permis- sion of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law. Italics in biblical quotes indicate emphasis added. Scripture quotations are taken from the ESV ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® ). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Other Scripture quotations are from: The Holy Bible, New International Version (niv). © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publish- ing House. All rights reserved. The Holy Bible, King James Version (kjv) Cover design: Matt Taylor Cover photo: Getty Images First printing, redesign 2009 Printed in the United States of America ISBN 13: 978-1-4335-0632-1 ISBN 10: 1-4335-0632-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Piper, John, 1946- Don’t waste your life / John Piper. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-498-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 10: 1-58134-498-8 1. Christian life. I. Title BV4501.3.P555 2003 248.4—dc21 2003007833 M L Y 1 8 1 7 1 6 1 5 1 4 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 0 0 9 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 4 3/31/09 3:24 PM To Louie Giglio and the passion of his heart for the renown of Jesus Christ in this generation Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 5 3/31/09 3:24 PM Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 6 3/31/09 3:24 PM CONTENTS Preface 9 For Christians and Non-Christians 1 My Search for a Single Passion to Live By 11 2 Breakthrough—the Beauty of Christ, My Joy 23 3 Boasting Only in the Cross, The Blazing Center 43 of the Glory of God 4 Magnifying Christ Through Pain and Death 61 5 Risk Is Right—Better to Lose Your Life 79 Than to Waste It 6 The Goal of Life—Gladly Making Others 99 Glad in God 7 Living to Prove He Is More Precious Than Life 107 8 Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5 131 9 The Majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy— 155 A Plea to This Generation 10 My Prayer—Let None Say in the End, 183 “I’ve Wasted It” Desiring God Ministries 191 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 7 3/31/09 3:24 PM Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 8 3/31/09 3:24 PM PREFACE For Christians and Non-Christians T he Bible says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19- 20). I have written this book to help you taste those words as sweet instead of bitter or boring. You are in one of two groups: Either you are a Christian, or God is now calling you to be one. You would not have picked up this book if God were not at work in your life. If you are a Christian, you are not your own. Christ has bought you at the price of his own death. You now belong doubly to God: He made you, and he bought you. That means your life is not your own. It is God’s. Therefore, the Bible says, “Glorify God in your body.” God made you for this. He bought you for this. This is the meaning of your life. If you are not yet a Christian, that is what Jesus Christ offers: doubly belonging to God, and being able to do what you were made for. That may not sound exciting. Glorifying God may mean nothing to you. That’s why I tell my story in the first two chapters, called “Created for Joy.” It was not always plain to me that pursuing God’s glory would be virtually the same as purs- 9 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 9 3/31/09 3:24 PM 10 PREFACE ing my joy. Now I see that millions of people waste their lives because they think these paths are two and not one. There is a warning. The path of God-exalting joy will cost you your life. Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full. This is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life. Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy. Please know that I am praying for you, whether you are a stu- dent dreaming something radical for your life, or whether you are retired and hoping not to waste the final years. If you wonder what I am praying, read Chapter 10. That is my prayer. For now, I thank God for you. My joy grows with every soul that seeks the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Remember, you have one life. That’s all. You were made for God. Don’t waste it. March 31, 2003 John Piper Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 10 3/31/09 3:24 PM [...]... because the mark of God-enthralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples 31 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 31 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE THE CRYSTAL-CLEAR REASON FOR LIVING The Bible is crystal-clear: God created us for his glory Thus says the... wanted no part of that game It looked like an utterly wasted life If there is no valid interpretation based on real objective, unchanging, original meaning, then my whole being said, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry But by no means let us treat scholarship as if it really matters.” 25 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 25 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE THE DEATH OF GOD AND THE DEATH OF MEANING Things... rocking chair The poem began: 13 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 13 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE Long I sought for the earth’s hidden meaning; Long as a youth was my search in vain Now as I approach my last years waning, My search I must begin again Across the forty years that separate me from that poem I can hear the fearful refrain, “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” Somehow there had been... self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness Standing 33 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 33 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves And each of these rare and precious moments in life beside the Canyon, before the Alps, under the stars—is... was an absolutely compelling road sign Stay on the road of objective truth This will be the way to avoid wasting your life Stay on the road that your fiery evangelist father was on Don’t forsake the plaque on your kitchen wall Here was weighty intellectual confirmation that life would be wasted in the grasslands of existentialism Stay on the road There is Truth There is a Point and Purpose and Essence... Edwards’s mind between the glory of God and the happiness of Christians The violence he had in mind was what Jesus meant when he said in essence, “Better to gouge out your 29 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 29 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE eye to kill lust and go to heaven than to make peace with sin and go to hell” (Matthew 5:29) And with regard to seeking his own happiness, keep in mind that... become alive to life He helped me see what is there in the world—things that, if we idn’t have, we would pay a million d dollars to have, but having them, ignore He made me more alive to beauty He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes He shook my dozing 19 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 19 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE soul and threw... pursue a medical career but instead went to seminary?” 21 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 21 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE As with every other time I’ve asked that kind of question through the years, the answer was, “If that’s where God leads you, that’s where I’ll go.” From that moment on I have never doubted that my calling in life is to be a minister of the Word of God NOTES 1 Schaeffer’s... to have all else without him is to perish in the end The Bible says that you can give away all that you have and deliver your body to be burned and have not love (1 Corinthians 13:3) If you don’t point people to God for everlasting joy, you don’t love You waste your life IS ETERNAL LIFE A HEAVEN FULL OF MIRRORS? Now think what this means for God’s love How shall God love us? Mere logic could give us... severed!” THE MAN WITH LONG HAIR AND KNICKERS But God was graciously posting compelling warnings along the way In the fall of 1965 Francis Schaeffer delivered a week 17 Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 17 3/31/09 3:24 PM DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE of lectures at Wheaton College that in 1968 became the book, The God Who Is There.1 The title shows the stunning simplicity of the thesis God is there Not in here, . that it is hard to overstate the impact he had on my life. 18 DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE Don'tWasteYrLifeGSE.06321.i02.indd 18 3/31/09 3:24 PM Someone introduced. Preaching Beyond the Bounds Don’t Waste Your Life The Passion of Jesus Christ Life as a Vapor A God-Entranced Vision of All Things When I Don’t Desire God Sex