Don't Waste Your Life — John Piper · Bethlehem Baptist

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

30 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #18

"Applies Paul's treasure principle concretely: every good thing in life exists so that by the way you use it, the world can see that Christ, not the thing itself, is your treasure. Money, food, relationships, possessions—all serve this single purpose."

Doctrinal loci· 13 surfaced

Sanctification · 11 Christology · 10 Ecclesiology · 5 Providence / Sovereignty · 5 Eschatology · 4 Hamartiology · 4 Ethics / Moral Theology · 3 Soteriology · 3 Doxology / Worship · 2 Anthropology · 1 Pastoral Theology · 1 Pneumatology · 1 Theology Proper · 1

Bible citations· 19

Illustrations· 2

personal story · unit #11 — Illustrates through personal story how the childhood plaque 'Only one life will soon be passed / Only what's done for Christ will last' embedded in Piper's heart the possibility and tragedy of wasting one's life.
personal story · unit #12 — Illustrates the tragedy of a wasted life through the story of a 78-year-old man weeping at a revival meeting, repeatedly saying 'I've wasted it.' The story reinforced Piper's childhood resolve not to waste his own life.

Theological claims· 8

The proper response to calamity is not astonishment that others died but astonishment that we ourselves have been spared by grace, since everyone deserves death. unit #3
Your life hangs by the thread of God's sovereign grace—He made you, owns you, and has absolute right to give or take your life whenever He pleases. unit #4
Since God sovereignly determines whether we live or die from moment to moment, the only way not to waste your life is to discover from Him what life is for. unit #5
Life is not about accumulating things, and no one on their deathbed finds comfort in possessions. unit #8
American retirement culture is a massive tragedy—billions of dollars are invested to persuade healthy 65-year-olds to waste 20 years in leisure while the world remains medically uncared for, uneducated, and unevangelized. unit #13
For death to magnify Christ as gain, Christ must be more precious to you than everything you leave behind, and when you die like that, the world sees Christ's supreme value. unit #21
The three essentials of the unwasted life are: using life and death to display Christ's supreme worth, cultivating supreme treasuring of Christ, and demonstrating that treasuring through willing risk and sacrifice for more of Christ. unit #22
Paul's passion was not the American dream of escaping suffering but embracing any circumstance—including suffering—that would enable him to know Christ better and magnify Christ's greatness for the world to see. unit #25

Quotations· 2

"Only one life to will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last." — Unknown (plaque in Piper's childhood home) (unit #11)

"You've worked for it, now enjoy it." — Retirement industry (paraphrased) (unit #13)

Read it

Full transcript

23,308 characters 30 units ~26 min reading time

0 · Opening prayer establishing the sermon's burden: that God would prevent the wasting of lives and deaths in the room, enable finding joy in suffering, and grip the young people present

Let's pray together. Father, my heart's desire tonight is that in part, because of what we do here now together, there would be no wasted lives in this room and in the hearing of my voice, and there would be no wasted deaths. I pray that you would bring a significance and a power and a meaning to the lives in this room. And I pray that you would use that significance and power and meaning to make every death count for your glory, whether it happens quickly or whether it happens 50 or 60 years from now. I pray, Lord, that if we're not able to trade in our pain, or shame, or suffering in this life, we would not postpone the joy, but rather find it in the pain, in the shame, in the suffering. So come now and help me to make your word plain. Grip, I pray, these young people and don't let them waste their lives. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

1 · Establishes the contemporary context: the Bam earthquake and clustering of disasters at year's end create an apocalyptic atmosphere that raises the question of what Jesus wants us to learn about not wasting our lives

So here we are gathered on the 29th of December, 2003, and the body count as we meet from the earthquake in Bam, Iran is at about 25,000. That's a lot of human lives snuffed out at 528 in the morning. And you feel the personal weight of it when you read about a father digging through the blocks of his house, looking for a daughter and a wife and uncovering a dead hand and passing out for grief. Or when you read about a little baby being found alive in the grip of a dead mother, puts a face on it. And what makes this event here at the end of 2003 feel so apocalyptic for some of us is not the magnitude of it, though it's 10 times bigger than 9-11, but how many other events were packed together with it, right? 13 people buried in a mudslide in California, six buried under an avalanche in Utah, 111 dead in a plane crash in Benin, 198 dead and poisoned from gas in China, all packed together in a few days at the end of the year. And it just takes your breath away and makes us ask, what would Jesus want us to learn from this about not wasting our lives?

2 · Exposits Luke 13:1-5 where Jesus responds to reports of calamity not with sentimentality but with a call to repentance, declaring that those who question God about others' deaths should marvel that they themselves are still alive

And I think if we go to Jesus and ask him that, he has something ready to say to us and it's found in Luke 13. You don't need to go there. This is not my main text. I just want to read you what Jesus, I think, would say. Do you remember the situation? Some people came to Jesus and told him about this atrocity in which Pilate had killed people while they were offering their sacrifices and he had taken their blood and mingled it with the blood of their sacrifices just to mock them. And they came to Jesus and said, what about that? Give an accounting of the almighty here. And here's what Jesus said. Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

3 · Draws the theological claim from Jesus' response: everyone deserves death, and the proper response to calamity is not to question God's justice but to marvel at one's own continued existence by grace

Now, don't make a mistake here. Jesus could weep with those who wept. Jesus had compassion almost everywhere he turned, but he knows and you know that after a season of extraordinary racking grief in calamity, it begins to ease up and the questions come. And when they come to Jesus with these questions, he does not settle for sentimentality, trying to make everybody feel good, trying to get God off the hook. That is not the way Jesus responds. Jesus says, are you astonished at the magnitude of this calamity in Galilee or at the magnitude of the calamity of the falling tower in Siloam? I will tell you what to be astonished at. Be astonished, you weren't under the tower. Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Means everybody in this room deserves to die and perish tonight. That's the way Jesus answered this inquiry about whether God could give an accounting of the deaths of the tower and Pilate's atrocity. So when you compare that earthquake to us tonight, I think Jesus would say, unless you repent, the thing you should be astonished about is that this hotel hasn't come down on all of us. Our wonderment shouldn't be that 25,000 people perished in a moment, but that we have not yet been snuffed out. That's what should amaze us, Jesus says.

4 · Establishes the doctrinal foundation: God sovereignly gives and takes life as He pleases

So I conclude from this event and this sets the stage for my message that your life is in God's hands. Your life hangs by a slender thread of sovereign grace tonight. You belong to God, he made you. You exist for him. God made life, he knows what life is for and he has a right to take it and a right to give it whenever he pleases. You remember Job, first chapter? All 10 of his children in an Iran-like calamity because the house fell on all 10 of them and killed them and Job gets the word and here's what it says happened. He tore his robe, saved his head, fell on the ground and worshiped and said, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Or as he said, 12 chapters later, in his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. Do you remember Hannah? She wanted a baby so bad and she was barren for years and then God heard her prayer and she conceived and bore Samuel and when she offered up Samuel, she sang a song. Listen to one of the lines in Hannah's song. First Samuel 2.6, the Lord kills and the Lord brings to life. The Lord brings down to shield and raises up. She had read her Bible well or learned it well from tradition. Deuteronomy 32, 39, see now that I even I am he and there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal and there is none who can deliver out of my hand.

5 · Applies the doctrine of God's sovereignty over life to the present moment: surviving this very sermon is by God's will alone

If any of you lives through the night or if I do, it will be sheer grace. Jesus' brother, James was tremendously gripped by this truth. I think James would have looked out across America and seen almost nothing but pride and arrogance because of what he said in chapter four. Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go up to such a town and trade a while and make profit, what? You don't know your life, you are but a vapor. You ought rather to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do such and such, but as it is, you boast and all such boasting is evil, which means if the Lord lives, if the Lord wills, John Piper will finish this message and not keel over. And if the Lord wills, you will not fall out of your chair dead tonight. And if he wills the opposite, you will, and he will have done you no wrong because your life is in his hands. He made you, he owns you, the Lord gives, the Lord takes and he never does anyone wrong. Whether he takes them at one month, one year, one decade or 100 years, you belong to God and hey, he may do with you as he pleases, you are his. And therefore he knows what life is for. And the only way not to waste a life is to key off of the almighty, to know what he would have you be.

6 · Signals the transition from establishing God's sovereignty over life to exploring Jesus' concern that students not waste the years ahead

Jesus has something to say about it because he's really jealous that you don't waste your life tonight, really jealous. You're all students, most of you are students. And therefore most of your life is in front of you, for most of you, not all of you. Some of you have already lived most of your life, but for most of you, it feels like it could go on a long time. And Jesus is very jealous that you not waste it.

7 · Exposits the parable of the rich fool from Luke 12, showing that Jesus defines the wasted life as one focused on accumulation rather than being rich toward God

If he were here, I think he would say, a person's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Life is not about accumulation. It's not about getting stuff. I think that's what Jesus would say to you right off the bat in America. And then he would tell a parable. A land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I'll do this. I'll tear down my barns, build bigger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for you for years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. And God said to him, fool, I tell you, I don't ever want to hear that word addressed to me from God. Fool, this night, your soul is required of you. And the things you prepared, whose will they be? So it is with everyone who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

8 · Applies the parable directly to the audience: life is a gift not for accumulation, and deathbed perspective exposes the emptiness of a life spent gathering possessions

Oh, how jealous Jesus is tonight that you do not waste your lives. You have a gift and it is called life. And it's not about accumulating things. This night, your soul may be required of you. And then whose will all those toys be? No sane person on his deathbed ever comforted his heart with his possessions that his life was well spent.

9 · Exposits Jesus' call to self-denial and cross-bearing from Matthew 16, establishing the paradox that saving your life means losing it, while losing your life for Christ's sake means truly saving it

So here, Jesus, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would seek to save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it and not waste it.

10 · Steps outside the exposition to make a direct pastoral confession: the fear of wasting one's life grips Piper personally even at 58, establishing emotional connection with the audience

It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more at age 58 than wasting my life.

11 · Illustrates through personal story how the childhood plaque 'Only one life will soon be passed / Only what's done for Christ will last' embedded in Piper's heart the possibility and tragedy of wasting one's life

You'll read about this in the book if you read it. I grew up in a Christian home and this was hanging over the sink in the kitchen from the time I was a tiny little child. And every morning I would get up and run into the kitchen and there it would be. Only one life to will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Which communicated to me over the years as a child, you can waste your life. You can really waste it. It was built into my heart as a little child. Don't waste it.

12 · Illustrates the tragedy of a wasted life through the story of a 78-year-old man weeping at a revival meeting, repeatedly saying 'I've wasted it

My dad told the story. One of the most moving I can remember as a little kid sitting, hearing my father preach as an evangelist and my father's eyes could really blaze in preaching. He always began the sermon with a joke but it wasn't very long before his eyes were blazing and he was telling stories that would make you cringe. And one of them was a revival meeting in which at the end of the meeting, an old man that everybody had been praying for for decades evidently walked to the front. I think age something like 78 and just wept and wept and wept as my father sat beside him on the pew. And all he could say was, I've wasted it. I've wasted it. I've wasted it. When I heard my dad tell that story and I heard it numerous times and I remembered that plaque, I felt with every fiber of my being, I will not waste it. You get one crack and there's no replay and you can throw it away or the opposite.

13 · Makes a polemical claim about American retirement culture: billions of dollars are invested to lure people into wasting the final decades of their lives in leisure while the world perishes

I'm 58 almost, a couple of weeks and the river of my life is really flowing fast over the precipice of my days. And I don't have any idea how long the Lord may give me and my zeal not to waste my life is as alive today as it's ever been, perhaps more so because it feels so short before I stand before the judge, King Jesus and give an account of my life. What a tragedy in America. This is one of the biggest tragedies in our culture that billions of dollars are invested every year to get people my age to waste the rest of our lives. Billions of dollars invested to persuade us and lure us at any cost it seems to waste the rest of our lives. It's called retirement. And in some it goes like this, you've worked for it, now enjoy it. 20 years perhaps of play, leisure, ease while the world uncared for medically, uneducated, filthy water, poverty stricken, unevangelized sinks under the weight of healthy 65 year old people playing bridge and shuffleboard and collecting shells and fishing and golfing their way into the presence of King Jesus.

14 · Directly applies the retirement critique to the student audience: without radical decisions now about where treasure lies, they will inevitably be sucked into the culture's life-wasting trajectory

And you know what? You're gonna join them unless at this stage in your life, you make some very radical decisions, very radical commitments, very radical choices about where your treasure is. Do not assume you won't be sucked in because every stage of your life in this Disneyland called America, there are powerful forces angling to get you to waste your lives. It will take a massive work of grace to rescue you from the clutches of this culture. For many of you are totally enslaved and I pray on the way to being set free.

15 · Pivots from the negative (what wastes life) to the positive (what constitutes an unwasted life), setting up the exposition of Philippians 1

So now the question is, what is the unwasted life? You're all worked up about us not wasting our lives. Tell us what the unwasted life looks like. Tell us the pathway so that it will be written over our lives at the end, this life was not wasted. What would that be?

16 · Introduces Philippians 1:20-21 as the defining text for understanding the unwasted life

Now, if you have a Bible, I do invite you to turn. If you don't, that's okay. I'll read the text for you, but we're gonna go to Philippians 1 for the answer. This text means almost more to me than any other when it comes to asking the question, how can I not waste my life? Whether it's age 18, 28, 38, 58, 88, this text is the answer. I preached on this text almost 24 years ago now when I candidated for the pastorate of Bethlehem, which is just a little ways away. So it has a very special, powerful place in my memory, in my life, and I want it to have a place like that for you. Philippians 1, we'll just read a couple of verses here, 20 and 21, and you will hear, I hope, Paul's passion, which is the opposite of the unwasted life. Philippians 1, 20, it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored, or you could use the word magnified, shown to be magnificent. Christ will be magnified, honored, shown to be magnificent in my body, whether by life or by death.

17 · Defines the unwasted life as making Christ look supremely valuable and shows from Philippians 3:7-8 that Paul accomplished this by treasuring Christ so much that everything else became loss by comparison

Paul's all-consuming passion is to so live and so die that Christ would look great. The unwasted life is the life that puts Christ on display as supremely valuable. I'll say it again, the unwasted life is the life that in everything you do in life and death puts Christ on display as supremely valuable. You have life given by God for this one main reason, make Christ look great, that's why you exist. My expectation and hope is that Christ will be shown to be great in my body, whether by life or by death. And so there are two parts, life and death. Let's just take one at a time. How in Paul's mind and in Paul's life is Christ honored, magnified, shown to be great in his life? The answer is given in chapter three, verse seven. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ. How does Paul make Christ look great? Answer, by experiencing Christ as such a treasure that everything else in his life is as nothing by comparison.

18 · Applies Paul's treasure principle concretely: every good thing in life exists so that by the way you use it, the world can see that Christ, not the thing itself, is your treasure

I count everything, money as loss, food as loss, looks as loss, friends as loss, family as loss, job and success as loss, graduation as loss in comparison with the treasure that Christ has become for me. How do you make Christ look great in your life and thus not waste it? Money is given to you so that you might use money in a way that shows money is not your treasure. Christ is. Food is given to you so that you might eat it in such a way that it will be plain. Food is not your treasure. Christ is. Friends, family are given to you so that you might live with them in such a way that it will be plain to the world. They are not your treasure. Christ is. Computers, toys, houses, lands, cars are given to you so that you might use them in such a way that it will be plain to the world. These are not your treasure. Christ is.

19 · Transitions from magnifying Christ in life to magnifying Christ in death

You talk about lifestyle implications, wartime living, the way we display the supreme worth of Jesus is by treasuring him above all things and then making choices which make the joy we have in his supreme worth manifest. Get it. Get it. And if he is not that for you tonight, if he's not that treasure for you, pray all night if you have to that your heart would be so changed that you would now treasure Jesus above everything in your life. That's the way Paul says he magnifies Jesus in life. Now, what about death? My eager expectation and hope is that Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death. How do you magnify Christ in death? Remember that little incident at the end of Jesus' earthly pilgrimage where a disciple was following him and the other disciple said, what about him? And Jesus said, it's none of your business about him. The day will come when you stretch forth your hands and people will lead you where you don't want to go. And John inserts the interpretation, by this he showed by what manner of death he was to glorify God. Peter was probably crucified upside down and it was planned as a way of glorifying God. Takes your breath away. What God may have in store for some of you, if you really want your life not to be wasted.

20 · Exposits Philippians 1:21 and 1:23: Paul magnifies Christ in death by experiencing death as gain because it means more of Christ

The answer to the question, how can my life and my now death magnify the worth of Christ is given in verse 21. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. How is dying gain for Paul? Answer is given in verse 23. My desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better. That's gain. So the way you show the infinite value of Jesus for the world to see in your dying is to experience your dying as gain because it means more of Christ.

21 · Draws the implication from Paul's 'to die is gain': for death to magnify Christ, Christ must be more precious than the sum total of everything left behind

But do you see what that implies about the proportion of affection you have for Christ compared to everything you leave behind, namely everything. If death is to be gain, Christ must be more precious to you than everything you leave behind. And when a person dies like that, the world looks on and says, this Christ must be valuable. Jesus Christ is most glorified in you in your dying. When you are most satisfied in him in your dying. That's what verse 21 teaches.

22 · Synthesizes the sermon's main argument into three essentials: (1) Life and death are gifts meant to display Christ's supreme worth, (2) You must cultivate treasuring Christ above all, (3) This treasuring becomes visible through what you're willing to risk and sacrifice for more of Christ

So in summary, here are the essentials of the unwasted life. Number one, life and death are given to you. They are gifts. Life is a gift, death is a gift, and they are given to you in order that you might use them to display the supreme worth of Jesus Christ. That's the pathway of the unwasted life. And therefore, you must cultivate a supreme valuing, treasuring of Jesus Christ above all things. I count everything as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus. If you're not there tonight, labor in prayer and in meditation and in wrestling with God that you might get there so that with all authenticity, you might be able to say, I count everything as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus. And then thirdly, this treasuring of him, which displays his worth is most clearly seen by what you are willing gladly to risk and sacrifice for the surpassing value of more of Jesus.

23 · Restates the three essentials for emphasis and clarity before moving to the extended 2 Corinthians 12 illustration of what treasuring Christ in suffering looks like

Let me say that one again. In fact, I'll say all three of them again, just by way of summary. First, you have life in order that you might display the supreme value of Jesus. The way you display the supreme value of Jesus is by treasuring him, being satisfied in him above all other things in life. And thirdly, that treasuring and display becomes most vivid by how much you are willing to risk or sacrifice if he calls in order to have more of him.

24 · Exposits 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 where Paul's thorn in the flesh becomes the occasion for experiencing more of Christ's power

Listen to the radical way Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 12. You remember the situation? He's got a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what it is. It's causing him pain. He says, Christ, please take it away. Three times. And Christ says, no. And then Paul says, verse nine, he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. There's more of Christ. Do you see that? My power. Do you want more of Christ? Christ's grace, Christ's power, Christ's fellowship. Do you want more and more and more because he is your treasure? Paul did. And therefore he said, Christ says, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness. And then Paul responds, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly. Don't miss that amazing counter intuitive word. I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ. Then I'm content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities. For when I'm weak, then am I strong.

25 · Contrasts Paul's passion with the American dream: Paul's life aim was not escaping suffering but experiencing more of Christ through whatever means—including suffering—would magnify Christ's greatness for the watching world

Magnifying Christ by being satisfied in him, in pain and calamity and suffering and insults and weakness was the passion of Paul's life. His passion was not the American dream of escaping insult, calamity, pain, suffering. His passion was any life and any death that enables me to know you better, see you more and magnify your greatness more. Bring it on, Jesus. All I want in my life and death is to enjoy you more and make your worth more vivid for the world to see.

26 · Directly challenges the audience to choose between the American dream and magnifying Christ

So I ask you tonight, are you going to throw away your life? Are you gonna buy into the American dream, minimize suffering, maximize comfort, maximize ease, maximize security, build bigger barns, work for the bread that perishes, lay up treasures on earth, covet the praise of man and be happy for 80 years and perish. Is that the way you're going to waste your life? Or are you going to see Christ crucified and risen and reigning and bearing your sins as the infinite treasure in your life that he really is and then make life choices that display to the world his value? Have you ever wondered why 1 Peter 3.15 isn't coming true for most of us? Where it says, always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you. And somebody asked you, anybody asked you recently? You know why? It looks like our hope is in the same thing they're hoping in. The church in America is not where it ought to be. We are going to have to make life choices for this globe, this racked with pain, lost, perishing, suffering, hungry, uneducated, without water, without medical care globe. We're going to have to make some choices about how to be invested that will cause the world to say, hmm, why are you going there? What are you hoping in? If you leave all this, then maybe 1 Peter 3.15 would come true for us.

27 · Issues a prophetic charge: if this generation doesn't embrace suffering for Christ's sake, God will accomplish His purposes through other means—perhaps the Global South church

I believe with all my heart that if God raises up a generation like that who doesn't waste their lives, the great commission will come to pass. Because if you are not the generation, if this generation does not embrace suffering, does not embrace pain, does not embrace shame for the surpassing value and joy of knowing Jesus, you will simply be passed over and God will get his work done another way, perhaps by the new Christendom. As Philip Jenkins calls it, in the South and in the East.

28 · Issues the sermon's final call: embrace Christ, embrace suffering, embrace the reward of knowing Him

So I call you to embrace Christ and embrace suffering and embrace the reward of knowing him. If your passion is to display Christ, if your passion is to treasure Christ above all things, if your passion is to take risks and sacrifice whatever it takes in order to display his worth, then the Middle East that you're committed to, East Asia that you're committed to, Sao Paulo, Brazil that you're committed to, then Toulouse, France that you're committed to, then these commitments will be filled and thousands of people will see the supreme value of Jesus Christ in your life and they will believe and written over their life and your life and I pray my life will be the words, this life was not wasted. This life gladly displayed the supreme worth of Jesus Christ.

29 · Closing prayer asking God to raise up 200,000 young people willing to count Christ precious above all, risk and sacrifice their lives for unreached peoples, and hear at the end, 'I didn't waste it' and 'Well done, good and faithful servant

Let's pray. Oh God, no words of mine, but only the power of the Holy Spirit can raise up a generation in which 200,000 young people will say, I'm going, I'm laying it down. I will count Jesus Christ as precious above all things. I will risk my life. I will indeed, if you call, sacrifice my life in order to display among the unreached peoples of the world the sweet beauty and infinitely satisfying glory of Jesus Christ. Oh God, come, I pray, and perform in the lives of these young people whatever it takes so that they can say at the end, I didn't waste it and hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Through Christ I pray, amen.

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December 29 · This sermon

Don't Waste Your Life

The unwasted life is the life that in everything you do—in life and in death—puts Christ on display as supremely valuable.

Philippians 1:20-21

Take it further

Discuss · apply

Small groups

6 discussion questions

In Philippians 1:20-21, Paul expresses an unusual conviction: that Christ will be magnified in his body 'whether by life or by death,' and t…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on how God's sovereign grace over life and death reorients our entire value system, calling us to treasure Christ above all and display His supreme worth through both our living and our dying.

Family table

What Would You Leave Behind?

This prompt invites your family to think concretely about what matters most by imagining a moment of departure. Listen for whether kids natu…

Couples

Displaying Christ Together

What part of this sermon made you reconsider what you're living for—and did the Spirit surface any area where you've drifted toward comfort…

Memorize

Philippians 1:20-21

This verse is the theological heartbeat of the entire sermon—it embodies Paul's passion to display Christ as supremely valuable in both living and dying, which is precisely what Piper means by an unwasted life. Memorizing this verse fixes in your mind the foundational conviction that Christ's honor in your body is what gives life its ultimate purpose, not comfort, accumulation, or ease.

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

This week we meditate on how God's sovereign grace over life and death reorients our entire value system, calling us to treasure Christ above all and display His supreme worth through both our living and our dying.

Monday 1 Samuel 2:6

Hannah's prayer declares with stunning clarity: 'The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.' This is not poetic sentiment but theological bedrock. When we truly grasp that God alone holds our breath in His hand, the American dream of securing our own comfort collapses, and we are freed to ask the only question that matters: What has God made me alive for?

Tuesday Luke 13:1-5

When Jesus heard of the Galileans slaughtered by Pilate, He did not console with explanations but demanded a reversal of perspective: 'Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.' Every news headline, every tragedy, is a mercy to us—a call away from our delusion of safety and toward repentance. We survive not because we are better or more deserving, but because grace has stayed God's hand.

Wednesday Luke 12:15-21

The rich fool built bigger barns, secured his abundance, and said to his soul, 'Take your ease'—only to hear God say that very night, 'Fool!' His wealth could not purchase one more heartbeat. We watch this parable play out in retirement accounts and second homes, where billions of dollars are spent to persuade us that leisure at sixty-five is life's reward. But Christ calls us to ask: What goods will still matter when I stand before Him?

Thursday Philippians 3:7-8

Paul counted all his credentials—his religious pedigree, his social standing, his accomplishments—as rubbish compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. This was no rhetorical flourish but the reordering of his entire life's calculus. When the watching world observes a Christian release wealth, comfort, and even life itself because Christ is worth more, they see something the gospel alone can produce—and they see Christ's value displayed.

Friday Matthew 16:24-25

Jesus does not invite us into a safer life but demands we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him—and promises that in losing our life for His sake we will find it. When we make visible, costly choices for Christ that contradict the world's value system, we become living epistles. The world will ask us why we treasure Christ above comfort—and then we have an open door to witness to the hope that is in us.

Memory verse this week

Philippians 1:20-21

It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Why this verse: This verse is the theological heartbeat of the entire sermon—it embodies Paul's passion to display Christ as supremely valuable in both living and dying, which is precisely what Piper means by an unwasted life. Memorizing this verse fixes in your mind the foundational conviction that Christ's honor in your body is what gives life its ultimate purpose, not comfort, accumulation, or ease.

Sunday-evening family table

What Would You Leave Behind?

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to think concretely about what matters most by imagining a moment of departure. Listen for whether kids naturally gravitate toward possessions or toward people and purpose—this reveals what they're already treasuring.

If you knew you were moving far away tomorrow and could only take one backpack, what would you miss the most about leaving behind—and why would you miss it?

works for ages 7+

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

In Philippians 1:20-21, Paul expresses an unusual conviction: that Christ will be magnified in his body 'whether by life or by death,' and that 'to die is gain.' What does Paul mean by calling death 'gain,' and how does that stance differ from the way most people in our culture think about death?

Philippians 1:20-21

→ What would it take for you personally to view your own death not as loss but as gain?
The sermon emphasizes that your life 'hangs by the thread of God's sovereign grace'—that God gives and takes life as He pleases. How does grasping this reality challenge the way you currently make decisions about your time, money, and future?

Job 12:10; Deuteronomy 32:39
Piper argues that we waste our lives when we accumulate possessions and pursue comfort as our primary aims. What does it look like practically to reject that trajectory, and what would need to change in your life this year for you to pursue something other than the American dream of leisure and security?

Luke 12:15-21; James 4:13-16

→ Name one specific area—your finances, your career path, your leisure time—where you sense you're being pulled toward waste. What would a 'non-wasted' choice look like there?
The sermon claims that without 'making radical choices about where your treasure is right now,' we will be 'sucked into American culture's trajectory of wasting our lives.' What does it mean to make your treasure in Christ visible and radical enough that others see it?

Philippians 3:7-8
Paul's great passion wasn't to escape suffering but to embrace any circumstance—including hardship—that would help him know Christ better and display Christ's greatness. How does the gospel of Christ's finished work free you to embrace that kind of willingness to suffer, rather than viewing suffering as an intrusion on the life God promises you?

Matthew 16:24-25; 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

→ What suffering or sacrifice is the Spirit currently inviting you into, and how does seeing it as a way to magnify Christ change your posture toward it?
The sermon concludes that 'the reason no one asks American Christians about our hope is that our hope looks identical to the world's hope in comfort and security.' If your life choices made it undeniably clear that Christ—not comfort—is your supreme treasure, how might that open doors for the gospel in your sphere of influence?

1 Peter 3:15

Couples · three questions over coffee

Displaying Christ Together

What part of this sermon made you reconsider what you're living for—and did the Spirit surface any area where you've drifted toward comfort or accumulation rather than Christ's supremacy?
As a couple, where are we most tempted to waste our life together on what the world treasures, and what would it look like for us to make a radical choice right now to display Christ's value to those around us?
What is one specific way the Spirit is inviting each of us to risk something—time, money, comfort, security—for the sake of knowing Christ better and showing His worth to others, and how can we pray for courage and faith in that?

Where this was preached

About the preacher

John Piper

Bethlehem Baptist · Minneapolis
Read the Guild Hall profile · All three stewarded sermons

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# Bethlehem Baptist · Minneapolis

Significant sermons by John Piper, stewarded by Sermon Steward as a sample.

## Sermons
- [Battling the Unbelief of Anxiety (Matthew 6:25-34)](/SignificantSermons/piper/sermons/battling-the-unbelief-of-anxiety)
- [(Biographies) Jonathan Edwards (Matthew 6:33)](/SignificantSermons/piper/sermons/biographies-jonathan-edwards)
- [Don't Waste Your Life (Philippians 1:20-21, 2003-12-29)](/SignificantSermons/piper/sermons/don-t-waste-your-life-2003-12-29)

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- About the church
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