Listen to John Piper’s entire 40-minute message at https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/ boasting-only-in-the-cross Have you ever heard a sermon so powerful that it woke you from your spiritual slumber? If you did, you didn’t just walk away saying, “That was a good sermon.” Instead, it actually propelled you toward change—a personal revival drawing you closer to God.
I had such an experience at an event called Passion-One Day in the year 2000 when I was a 19-year-old college student. Several friends and I joined some 40,000 college students who had come to Shelby Farms in Memphis, Tennessee, for an outdoor worship and prayer conference. To me as a teen, it was like a Christian version of Woodstock. No hotels or restaurants were close by. No food trucks or lunch breaks or nice, fancy bathrooms. Just 40,000 students funneling in and out of portapotties all day and night.
The Saturday of the main event, students sat on jackets or garbage bags fanned out around a wooden stage. At about 1pm, a pastor I had never heard of, got up on that big stage. He didn’t look like a cool, young, youth pastor. Truthfully, he looked like an older dad with crazy hair blowing in the wind. His name was John Piper, well known now as an outstanding theologian.
What he said that day changed my life. “You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world,” he said. “You don’t have to be smart, or goodlooking, or from a good family. You just have to know a few, basic, glorious, majestic, unchanging, eternal things, and be gripped by them, and be willing to lay down your life for them.”
Then he laid out an unforgettable comparison. “Three weeks ago, we got news at our church that two women, Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in the African country of Cameroon. Ruby Eliason—over 80, single all her life, a nurse. Poured her life out for one thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the sick and the poor in the hardest and most unreached places. On the other hand, was Laura Edwards, a medical doctor in the Twin Cities, and in her retirement, she partnered up with Ruby. She was also pushing 80 and going from village to village in Cameroon. They were driving, the brakes gave way and failed. Over a cliff they went, and they’re dead instantly. And I asked my church, was this a tragedy? Two women, in their 80s whose lives were devoted to one idea—Jesus Christ magnified among the poor and the sick in the hardest places. Was this a tragedy?”
With our mouths hanging open at the story, we knew the answer. “It is not a tragedy,” Piper affirmed. “I’ll read to you what a real tragedy is.” He read a page from a Reader’s Digest: “’Bob and Penny took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now, they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells.”
John Piper looked up at us, and he said, “That’s a tragedy, and there are people in this country that are spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it. And I get 40 minutes to plead with you—don’t buy it. Don’t settle for that dream.” Then Piper concluded his thought: “As the last chapter of your life before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did with what He gave you: Don’t say, “Here it is, Lord—my shell collection. And I’ve got a good swing. And look at my boat. I plead with you: Don’t waste your life on the seashells.”
Now I get only a short Indian Journal column to convince you not to buy into a life of simple trivialities, but instead to store up your treasure in heaven where the things that are done for God’s Kingdom will last. If you don’t already have a church home, we’d love to meet and encourage your faith at LECC. Our Church family is located at 415897 Highway 9, Eufaula. We have small group Bible study at 10 a.m., worship at 11 a.m., and Wednesday night all-age activities at 6:30 p.m. There we try hard not to waste our time on trivialities.
