Notes on the Book ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’
Summary
When we get to the end of our lives, and we are on our death bed, will we think back on our life and think that we have done all we could for the cause of Christ?
What does Wasting Your Life Mean?
- Losing our life trying to save it(Mark 8:35)
- Living for yourself
- Holding up worldly treasures
What Does not wasting Your Life Mean?
- To glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life
- Proving that Christ is our Treasure
- Not focusing on earthly treasures
- Glorifying God
- Adorning him
- Making “much of God”
- Joyfully rescuing people from hell
- Meeting their physical needs
- Making them glad in God
- Doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is
- Working hard
- Giving to others
Where does this leave us?
My Search for a Single Passion to Live By
When we inevitably reach the end of our lives. Will we look back and think of all the time we wasted? Of all the useless activities?
We want to ‘not waste our lives’ but sometimes we fall in a trap of, not asking “What more can I do?” but “What is permissible?”
Breakthrough—The Beauty of Christ, My Joy
Johnathan Edwards
Johnathan Edwards was a pastor and theologian in New England. He had a passion for the supremacy of God. He wrote some resolutions in his early twenties to intensify his life for the glory of God:
- Resolution #5: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possible can.”
- Resolution #6: “Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live”
- Resolution #17: “Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.”
- Resolution #22: “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as such happiness, in the other world, as I possible can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be though of”
#22 is in reference to Edwards having violence against his sin, as such in Matthew 5:29. Also he was talking about being happy in God as a way to glorify him.
- If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Johnathan Edwards in "Nothing Upon Earth Can Represent the Glories of Heaven"
[The] glory of God [does not] consist merely in the creature’s perceiving his perfections: for the creature may perceive the power and wisdom of God, and yet take no delight in it, but abhor it. Those creatures that so do, don’t glorify God. Nor doth the glory of God consist especially in speaking of his perfections: for words avail not any otherwise than as they express the sentiment of the mind. This glory of God, therefore, [consists] in the creature’s admiring and rejoicing [and] exulting in the manifestation of his beauty and excellency… . The essence of glorifying … God consists, therefore, in the creature’s rejoicing in God’s manifestations of his beauty, which is the joy and happiness we speak of. So we see it comes to this at last: that the end of the creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature; for if God created the world that he may be glorified in the creature, he created it that they might rejoice in his glory: for we have shown that they are the same.
The Bible is clear: God created us for his glory.
- I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth—- everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
John Piper
God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion, namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. … The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we don’t, we display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism in display without enjoyment. Vice versa, we deceive ourselves because the mark of joy is to share it with others.
- So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
What does it mean to glorify God? ^b28b44 It does not mean similar to ‘beauty’, but something else. It means more similar to the word ‘magnify’. We are to make him more look more like the greatness and beauty with infinite worth that he actually is. We are to raise what others see of him to his actual attributes.
We were made to see and savor God; to be completely satisfied in him. We are to spread this; in doing so we share love.
The really wonderful moments of life are not self-satisfaction but self-forgetfulness. In nature we see things that take focus away from us and point to God.
- Psalm 19
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
God made the universe big and us small to say something about himself, that is is great and powerful and wise and beautiful. It is for us to learn that he is infinitely great, powerful, wise, and beautiful.
John Piper
What makes the good dead an act of love is not the raw act, but the passion and the sacrifice to make God Himself known as glorious. … If you don’t point people to God for everlasting joy, you don’t love. You waste your life.
Eternal life is knowing God and his son. We were made to stand in awe of a person, the only one worthy of awe. Nothing else can satisfy the soul. God loves us by liberating us from the bondage of self so that we can enjoy knowing and admiring Him forever. God calls us to do this to make much of Him in all we do, in every part of our lives. All of this must be done through Christ This is the only way it will last.
God sent Jesus to give us this eternal and best pleasure. Jesus came down to us, and made himself nothing. He became like the form of a servant. He humbled Himself, even to death to receive our sins. This is the only way it could happen.
If we are not following God, we will regret it one day
Boasting Only in the Cross, the Blazing Center of the Glory of God
We should not boast in anything except one thing. The cross. If we desire that there be no boasting except in the cross, then we must live near the cross-indeed we must live on the cross.
- May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
We only boast in the cross when we are on the cross. We are dead to the world, and the world is dead to us. Because we have been crucified.
- I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
We have been crucified. When Christ died, all that are and will be His died also. When we become His we(our old self) die. When we become His, our new self is born again.
What does that mean practically? Does the new self just mean that we have a want to do better more?
Practicably?
We can still be glad for physical things like safety and security. “Being dead to the world does not mean not having no feelings about the world. It means that every legitimate pleasure in the world becomes a blood-bought evidence of Christ’s love, and an occasion of boasting in the cross.
When God gives us blessings, yes they are nice to us physically, but we are meant to see who they are coming from. They are pointing us to Him. It is better to give these gifts away to others rather than hoard them to ourselves. It shows the personality of God more.
Suffering
- In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
- But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
- That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
God is sovereign over Satan. God decides where Satan goes to glorify Him and for the good of his people.
It’s not wrong to run away from suffering. Sometimes it’s God’s plan for us to have an escape. The point though is to not run for being a slave to fear.
There is risk in everything we do, even more so for Christ. Like how the Israelites were scared of the land of Canon and did not go in and attack leading to God punishing them for 40 years, it’s not good to do the same.
Although all this is good, we should not get caught up in self-denial which disables us from enjoying the pleasures of this life that God gave us, or risk for the sake of self-exaltation. Everything in moderation, including moderation. The point of the risk is to glorify God, not ourselves.
God takes things away, yes, but he gives us the things to do us will and be supremely happy in Him. To trust Him and do His will. God gives us everything we need to do things we wants us to do.
No suffering will take us away from God’s love.
The Goal of Life - Gladly Making Others Glad in God
Risking your life to make others glad. It’s impossible to make others glad in God if you don’t forgive people. You can’t only see their flaws and mistakes.
Glad
Pleased, happy, gratified.
The motivation for being a forgiven person is God. He forgave us our sins so we are able to know and enjoy Him forever. Therefore the root motivation for forgiving is “…the joy of being freely and joyfully at home with God.” We receive an impulse for forgiving people in the joy that God forgave us. WE should experience forgiveness as a free and undeserved joy in God to carry us through the World.
The nature and aim of glad-hearted Christian giving is the effort to give others joy in God. As our purpose is to glorify God by being satisfied in him, we live to gladly make others glad in God. We glorify God in the pursuit of their gladness.
Living to Prove He is More than Life
We need to show that Jesus is more than life. That he is worth more than anything else in this world, under the sun. We do this by not putting him over things in this world, like stuff. We shouldn’t be focused on obtaining and securing things.
We Are Living in a time of War
Although we don’t always think it, we are living in a war between God and sin. In a war we make sacrifices to further our cause. Are these things important in a war? Our values change a lot if we believe it.
There is time for relaxation though. The point is to don’t waste our lives.
In war, we make sacrifices for the greater good. Too often we get comfortable living every day like there is peace. In war, we ask, “What can I do to help?” “What can I do to bring victory?” “What can I sacrifice to advance the cause?” In peacetime, we ask, “What can I do to be more comfortable? ” This is the wrong response. We should be asking questions like, “How will this help me treasure Christ more?” or “How will this help me know or display Christ?”
Losing Our Lives
- For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
We waste our lives when we lose our lives by trying to save them.
What does ‘saving them’ mean? Use our possessions to show that Christ is our Treasure thusly keeping us on the path to heaven?
Some people think we can lead a good life by avoiding sin, hard work during the week, and fun on the weekend(church). This is a wasted life. We are designed for much more. On the death bed, will you ever think, “I wish I spent more time at the office”.
Money becomes useless for lasting happiness. Relationships become precious.
Time with the family means more than TV and video games. Point - Don’t simply avoid evil things. Search for things that are good.
TV
TV is bad for us because the content is so shallow and trivial the “capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels.”
Neil Postman
What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk… . Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world’s first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death.
Because of things like TV, God has gained a sort of “weightlessness” even in the church. We don’t have as much concern for his authority.
Douglas Groothuis
The triumph of the televised image over the word contributes to the depthlessness of postmodern sensibilities… . One cannot muse over a television program the way one ponders a character in William Shakespeare or C. S. Lewis, or a Blaise Pascal parable, or a line from a T. S. Eliot poem, such as ‘But our lot crawls between dry ribs / to keep its metaphysics warm.’ No one on television could utter such a line seriously. It would be “bad television”—too abstract, too poetic, too deep, just not entertaining… . [Not only that] but the images appear and disappear and reappear without a proper rational context. An attempt at a sobering news story about slavery in the Sudan is followed by a lively advertisement for Disneyland, followed by an appeal to purchase panty hose that will make any woman irresistible, etc., ad nauseum.
- And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5
While becoming a missionary or a job such as those is a way to not waste your life, the war is being fought everywhere, not just physically.
God calls us to be spread out, to be the salt of the earth. We are supposed to get different jobs around and work hard.
You can contribute anywhere. “You don’t waste your life by where you work, but by how and why” There are separate ‘church’ and ‘secular’ callings, but they are both beneficial. They are no different from a spiritual view. They are all doe for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community as we all serve each other.
Some people are meant to stay behind and supply, to give. God calls us to different jobs as he requires of us. We shouldn’t assume we need to join a ‘spiritual’ job.
Working Hard
- For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you,
- nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.
- We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.
- For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
- We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies.
Main idea
People should not be lazy. They should work hard.
How Can We Make much of God in the way We Work?
1. Through the Fellowship that We Enjoy with Him through the Day in All Our Work
Christians don’t just ‘go to work’, they go to work with God
Be thankful you can work at all. Be thankful for everything that God gave you. Be thankful for every minute of life. Praise him and trust him and lean on him. Have a relationship with God.
Main idea
Work with God
2. We Make much of Christ in Our Secular Work by the Joyful, Trusting, God-exalting Design of Our Creativity and Industry
We glorify God in more than our hard work. We are glorify got differently than animals.
- So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.- God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
God creates us to subdue the earth and rule over it. In other words, we should be busy understanding, shaping, designing, and using God’s creation in a way that calls attention to his worth and wakens worship. So, we should reflect what God is really like, not by making ourselves look great, but to make him look great. We should be working excellently to show God’s glory. When you do this you can have a sweet sense of peace at the end of the day. Work is not a curse. It is still a good, God-like thing.
The second way to make much of God in secular work is the joyful, trusting, God-exhaling design of our creativity and industry. God made us for work so that when we consciously rely on his power and shape the world after his excellence, we might be satisfied in him, and he would be glorified in us.
Each hour of work becomes a boast in the cross when we remember this joy is only possible for undeserving sinners.
Main idea
Work hard to shape the earth to end up glorifying Christ
3. We Make much of Christ in Our Secular Work when it Confirms and Enhances the Portrait of Christ’s Glory that People Hear in the Spoken Gospel
Our work adorns the doctrine of God. The way we do it increases or decreases the attractiveness of the gospel we profess before unbelievers.
If we work and live well, obstacles will be removed.
- Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
Make much of God by having high standards of excellence and integrity and manifest good will. Then there will be no obstacles of the gospel.
Main idea
Work hard and well to glorify Christ
4. We Make much of Christ in Our Secular Work by Earning Enough Money to Keep Us from Depending on Others, while Focusing on the Helpfulness of Our Work rather than Financial Rewards
God created us to work satisfyingly to provide for our needs.
At creation, we were created to work without futility and frustration. God made man to work the ground, from the ground. Work was not the sustainer, God was. Adam was a son working with his Father in the stewardship of creation. Man was free in work to be creative without stress. When sin came into the world, work became hard with the futility and frustration of the fallen creation.
Christ did redeem us from the curse of the law, but toil and death are still things which we experience. We still need to work for our needs.
Matthew 6:25, 32-33 - NIV 25. Do Not Worry
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ... 32. For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.Matthew 11:28 - NIV 28. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
1 Corinthians 15:58 - NIV 58. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
In summary, God does not want his children to be burdened with the futility and frustration of the weariness depression of toil. He wants to free us from that section of the curse too.
We should make much of Christ by working like him, and not being lazy. We should follow his will for the design of the age.
We are called to earn our own living to meet our needs, however, financial profit should not be our focus. ^work There is no point to labor for the ‘food that perishes’, or wealth here on earth. We should instead focus on how helpful our product or service can become.
- Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
God has removed the anxious toil with trust in God’s promise to supply our own needs. The call is to seek the kingdom of God first and the food that perishes will be given to us.
- And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
- those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;
- those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
We should buy things, yes, but acting as if we have no goods. We can do business, but stay free from it. The financial dealings is not our life.
If something were to happen to our income, we are not to worry about our food. Our peace and love are not all gone. The above still applies. We should still enjoy Christ’s being exhaled in the way we work. Jesus calls us to be aliens and exiles in this world.
5. We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning money with the desire to use our money to make others glad in God
We should dream how to use our excess money to make others glad in God. The point is that secular work can be a God honoring blessing by giving our earning we don’t need to meet the needs of others. We should help people who need it.
- In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”
6. We make much of Christ in our secular work by treating the web of relationships it creates as a gift of God to be loved by sharing the gospel and by practical deeds of help
Personal evangelism is important. One of God’s jobs for us is to evangelism.
The first church was a group of people walking around sharing the gospel. It was on their lips around new relationships. They freely received; they freely gave. They were moved by the words of Jesus:
- What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
- Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
The point isn’t that we should quit work and become a full-time evangelist. The point is that work has it’s proper meaning and significance.
For many, the move toward missions and deeds of mercy will not be a move away from one’s work, but with one’s work. Not only should we ask what our vocation is, we should ask how it should be lived out.
Conclusion
Secular work is not a waste when we make much of Christ in it. God’s aim is to be known, as knowing him is life and joy. He does not remove the need to work, destroying society and culture. He spreads a passion for his supremacy. Work like the world and waste your life, or work for the glory of Christ and your satisfaction will last forever and God will be exalted in your joy.
The Majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy: A Plea to This Generation
Missionaries and ministers of mercy don’t come from nowhere, they come from people like us. If you a passion for have pity for perishing people and the reputation of Christ, you must care about world missions.
Loving people and glorifying Christ are not separate ideas. If you love people, you will lay down your life to make them eternally glad in God. To glorify Christ, you will also lay down your life to make people happy in God.
We have a very limited understanding, therefore we should let got tell us what he wants; what his priorities are. Ensure we listen to him:
- All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,- for dominion belongs to the Lord
and he rules over the nations.
Old Testament Prayers:
- May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you.- May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you rule the peoples justly
and guide the nations of the earth. Selah
Old Testament commands:
3 Fire goes before him
and consumes his foes on every side.
10 Let those who love the Lord hate evil,
for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
New Testament Commission from the risen Christ:
- Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
- Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
- and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
the apostle Paul’s great life of utter dedication to this mission:
- It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.
- Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”
the magnificent picture of the final outcome of God’s purposes in history:
- And they sang a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.- You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
John Piper's church's statement of faith paragraph 13
We believe that the commission given by the Lord Jesus to make disciples of all nations in binding on His Church to the end of the age. This task is to proclaim the Gospel to every tribe and every tongue and people and nation, baptizing them, teaching them the words and ways of the Lord, and gathering them into churches able to fulfill their Christian calling among their own people. The ultimate aim of world missions is that God would create, by His Word, worshippers who glorify His name through glad-hearted faith and obedience. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and the goal of missions.
John Piper
This is the big picture. Christ came and died and rose again in order to gather a joyful, countless company for his name from all the peoples of the world. This is what every Christian should dream about.
It is crucial to maintain wartime attitude and to maintain secular jobs. Christians dream about when there will be no more war. We should love to hear about the advance of Christ.
While we should focus on our walk with Jesus, that is not the main picture. The bigger things are more important.
Evangelism locally is important as internationally. We can’t simply have eyes for the far away groups. Like Christ, who came as an example, we are to have mercy on others and serve the less fortunate. Mercy and missions are inextricable since the gospel we spread demands mercy to the poor at home.
Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Sermon LXXXII in The Works of the Late Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne
Now, dear Christians, some of you pray night and day to be branches of the true Vine; you pray to be made all over in the image of Christ. If so, you must be like him in giving… “though he was reich, yet for our sakes he became poor” … Objection 1. “My money is my own.” Answer: Christ might have said, “My blood is my own, my life is my own” … then where would we have been? Objection 2. “The poor are undeserving.” Answer: Christ might have said, “They are wicked rebels … shall I lay down my life for these? I will give to the good angels.” But no, he left the ninety-nine and came after the lost. He gave his blood for the undeserving. Objection 3. “The poor may abuse it.” Answer: Christ might have said the sae; yea, with far greater truth. Christ knew that thousands would trample his blood under their feet; that most would despise it’ that many would make it an excuse for sinning more; yet he gave his own blood. Oh, my dear Christians! If you would be like Christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and the undeserving. Christ is glorious and happy and so will you be. It is not your money I want, but your happiness. Remember his own word, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
For a wealthy person, if they have too much wealth, the only saving is constant giving. America has become many times richer since the 1930s, but the percentage of income given to the church has decreased. If people gave a lot more, the church would have a lot more money.
We won’t fully know God in all his majesty until we know him moving among the nations. The scope of God’s saving work enlarges our view of his triumphant grace.
Currently in the world about 26% of the world’s population is unreached without indigenous evangelizing churches. Many places are completely enclaved.
Don’t be scared to be called upon. Pray for outreach an you might be called upon. God owns the world, so all of it is his.
John Piper
No, you don’t have to be a missionary to admire and advance the great purposes of God to be known and praised and enjoyed among all peoples. But if you want to be most fully satisfied with God as he triumphs in the history of redemption, you can’t go on with business as usual—doing your work, making your money, giving your tithe, eating, sleeping, playing, and going to church. Instead you need to stop and go away for a few days with a Bible and a notepad, and pray and think about how your particular time and place in life fits into the great purpose of God to make the nations glad in him. How will you join the great global purpose of God expressed in Psalm 67:4, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy”?
Many people’s calling is to stay at their job. Some people may feel discontent though. This is not always a call to leave our post however. But, if it is deep, recuring, long lasting, and if it grows Biblically, then God may be calling you to a new work. If you wish to be more holy and to magnify Christ, then God may be moving you.
My Prayer—In the End, Let None of You say, “I’ve wasted it!”
Suggested reading of Chapter 10 in it’s entirety as it cannot be reproduced here.