Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. About a month ago, we looked at how to apply Old Testament stories to our lives — some helpful Bible reading tools there for how to move from ancient Old Testament narratives to our own lives now. That was APJ 2118.

Today, we look at sermon application more specifically. How important is life application to a sermon? Can you even have a sermon without application? Or is application optional and unnecessary? It’s a great question from a young woman from Washington state: “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. I’m writing to say that my pastor does a great job teaching us the details of the Bible. But Sundays are also very much academic lectures. While I leave church with a head full of knowledge and history and facts, I don’t often come away with a message I can apply to my life that helps me grow as a Christian. I’ve asked him to consider adding some application to his sermons, but the suggestion has led to no changes that I can perceive.

“You’ve heard this exact same criticism yourself. I remember you saying in APJ episode 1968, titled ‘Ten Criticisms of John Piper’s Preaching,’ that the number nine criticism was ‘You don’t give enough application, Piper. You focus mainly on exposition, and not enough on application to real-life situations.’ And then you suggested that a decade of ten-minute applications in Ask Pastor John episodes is your way of ‘doing penance for all those years without ten minutes of application at the end of the sermon.’ Quite funny. But seriously, how much life application should a preacher seek to offer in a Sunday sermon?”

I doubt that it is possible to give a quantitative answer to the question “How much life application should a preacher give in a sermon?” But I think we will get at it by analyzing what application is in preaching. It’s not a simple thing. How does application relate to exposition (or another word for exposition would be explanation)?

Expositing by Applying

I want to make the case that all good application is further exposition. That is, it’s part of the explanation of the meaning of the text. It’s not something merely added on to the exposition or explanation. Good application more deeply explains — makes the original meaning clearer, sharper, more compelling. And I want to make the case that the other way around is also true — namely, no exposition or explanation of the text is complete as exposition without application to real contemporary living.

Now, that may sound like I’m just contradicting my pattern in life, but hear me out. God’s communication to us is never without implications for the living of our lives. Those implications are part of what he is trying to communicate in the Bible. They’re not a separate thing. It’s part of what he’s trying to communicate — the implications for our lives of what he teaches. Therefore, the exposition of that communication is not complete if those implications do not touch the lives of the people in the pew. And that touching we often call application.

So, you can see I’m not happy with the hard dividing line between explanation and application. Good and full explanation includes application, and good and helpful application deepens explanation. There is no hard-and-fast line between them.

Example of Simple Exposition

I think I can show this by taking a sample text and describing three stages or kinds of exposition merging with application. So, let’s take Romans 8:13. Paul says, “If you live according to the flesh you will die.” Let’s just take that phrase. The rest of it says, “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live,” but I don’t have time to deal with both halves.

“Good and full explanation includes application, and good and helpful application deepens explanation.”

“If you live according to the flesh you will die.” Now, the preacher’s first job is to explain what that means. What is God trying to communicate to his people? To do that, we need to explain what “flesh” is, we need to explain what “dying” is, and we need to explain what “live according to the flesh” is. So, flesh, dying, living — that has to be explained. At least those three things have to be exposited or opened or explained — not with ideas coming out of our own head, but with Paul’s ideas, so that we’re thinking his thoughts after him, not just making up our own thoughts and putting them in his mouth.

So, to explain the meaning of “flesh,” the preacher might back up a few verses and see how the word “flesh” was used in verses 7 and 8. Or he might go to Galatians 5:19 and show from “the works of the flesh” what the flesh is. With regard to the meaning of “death,” he might observe that everybody dies of physical death, whether they live according to the flesh or not. And so, death in this verse must be more than physical death, because only those who live according to the flesh will die this death. He might argue that way and go to Romans 6:23 to flesh it out. Thirdly, he might observe that “living according to the flesh” would mean that the impulses of the flesh that he has now defined get the upper hand and control the life.

Now, the pastor may take five or ten or fifteen minutes to do that. I just took two. And he unpacks the three explanatory ideas of flesh, death, living, and he may do so with zero reference to the people sitting in front of him. That, I think, is what gives preaching a lecture feel and makes a person think that his mind is being taught, but his life is not being shaped.

Applicatory Exposition

So, what I think is better than that is for the preacher, at every point in the exposition, the explanation, to look the people in the eye over and over again in the exposition using the pronoun you — they’re in the third pew — and asking them, “Do you see these realities? Do you see them right now in your own life? Do you know what your flesh is? Do you know what living is and what dying and heaven and hell are? I’m talking to you.” And he’s doing that as he does exposition. He’s not abstracted, like he’s outside the room during exposition and inside the room during application.

No. Every explanation is not an explanation in the abstract, but an explanation, as it were, of some dynamic in our lives. I would call this “applicatory exposition” or “applicatory explanation.” The preacher’s not waiting until the explanation is done to press these realities on the hearers. You look at them in the eye and you say, “Do you know what your flesh is?” And he’s saying that during his exposition on what is the flesh. If you don’t know what your flesh is, how will you obey this text?

In other words, you’re creating an existential problem for these people as you’re doing the exposition to show them how the exposition itself is very relevant for their lives right now in this moment. “Do you want to know what your flesh is? Or are you just sitting there indifferent to whether you live or die, according to this text?” Those kinds of questions are eyeball-to-eyeball connections. They don’t have to wait for application.

That’s the way you talk as you do explanation. If “living according to the flesh” means daily life without reference to God, say, you call attention to the fact that this is your life we’re dealing with right now. “As I do this explanation, I’m dealing with your life. You’re going to die if you live according to the flesh. Pay attention to what I’m doing here. This is for you. This exposition has enormous immediate applicatory significance for your life. Is your life lived without reference to God most of the time?” If “dying” means permanently and in hell, ask them, “When was the last time you pondered the possibility of hell? Does it have a functioning place in your life? This verse sure calls you to have that place in your life.”

Another name you might give to this kind of exposition or explanation is “urgency of exposition.” Exposition itself can be done academically or existentially with a sense of urgency, because everything in this text matters ultimately. You don’t have to wait until the last ten minutes of the sermon to urgently press these realities that you’re expositing onto the hearts of the hearers.

Illustrative Exposition

Now, here’s the second stage of exposition after this kind of urgent applicatory exposition. I might call it “illustrative exposition,” and I think this is what many people think of when they think of application. You look at your people and you ask, “What would be an example this afternoon at three o’clock of living according to the flesh?” And you pause and you wait. Let them think.

And he might say, “You will be living according to the flesh this afternoon at three o’clock, husband, if your wife says something that feels demeaning or dismissive, and you sink into a sequence of emotions like self-pity, anger, sullenness, pouting, withdrawal. That is not the way of Christ. That is not the way of the Spirit, men. That is the way of the flesh. And if you live in that way without repentance, you will go to hell. It’s that practical, guys.” That’s what I’d call “illustrative exposition.” And I say it’s exposition. Yes, I say it’s exposition, not just illustration. Because at that moment, this text just might open up with its proper meaning to those husbands who have been daydreaming until I nailed them.

Soul-Penetrating Exposition

Let me mention one more stage of the exposition, which we might call “soul-penetrating exposition.” At this point, the preacher might pose the question, “How does this verse motivate you, congregation, not to live according to the flesh? How does it motivate you?” Pause. Wait. Let them look down at their text. The answer is, “It threatens you with death and hell if you do live according to the flesh. That’s how it motivates you.”

Now, that’s going to make people really uncomfortable, right? You’ve just created a big problem, because everybody knows that’s not a good enough motivation. But then you ask the more penetrating question, “Is the fear of hell, which this verse creates — it ought to — an adequate motivation for putting the flesh to death?” And you pause and you wait. See what they would answer in their head. All of this is application with urgency. And then you take another ten minutes in your sermon to unpack how it is that you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit — and not just by fear — and what that means.

So, what I’m saying is that there is a way to do exposition that is applicatory and illustrative and penetrating. And we’re not to insist that pastors carve up their sermons between exposition and application. I want to encourage pastors to have a flavor and a spirit of penetrating, urgent, applicatory exposition at every moment in the sermon.

Sometimes, the solution to our spiritual struggles is less spiritual than we imagined.

Maybe you walk in a spiritual wilderness, afflicted by distressing doubts. Maybe a dull apathy settled upon you some time ago. Maybe you live in a land where joy feels far away.

You might imagine that the main solution to these spiritual struggles is, well, spiritual: hold more firmly to God’s promises; draw near to him more regularly; search out hidden sins. And you might be right. But maybe, just maybe, you need to hear counsel like John Newton’s (1725–1807):

Sometimes when nervous people come to me, distressed about their souls, and think that is their only complaint, I surprise them by asking if they have no friend in Cornwall, or in the north of Scotland, whom they could visit; for I thought a ride to the Land’s End, or John o’ Groat’s House, might do them more good than all the counsel I could give them. (Letters, 389)

Sometimes, our spiritual struggles come not because we have neglected God’s word but because we have neglected his world. We have walked through life wearing sunglasses and wondered at the darkness. We have lived with headphones on and questioned why we can’t hear.

We may indeed have spiritual issues to address. But our first solution may simply be this: open your eyes and ears and wonder at the world God made.

Where Wonder Dies

By wonder, I mean a wide-eyed awareness of God’s creation that leaves us hushed, self-forgetful, and brimming with joy. Such wonder quiets cares and awakens worship. It gilds ordinary moments and dignifies daily labors. It composes and calms, reminds and recalibrates, adds poetry to prose. Even a little wonder can do wonders for the soul.

But some of us rarely look through the window of wonder. We are too distracted by other attractions, even though they lend far less cheer to heart and mind. Perhaps two allure your attention.

The first is probably not surprising. On average, we Americans check our phones some two hundred times a day, or about once every five waking minutes. “With the smartphone,” Nicholas Carr writes, “the human race has succeeded in creating the most interesting thing in the world” (The Shallows, 233). But this “most interesting thing” has a way of rendering the real world uninteresting. Life looks drab in the smartphone’s glow.

You don’t need to be addicted to your phone, however, to lose your wonder. Another more surprising attraction draws and keeps many for far too long. Some have called it “the devilish onrush” of the modern world; others, “the cult of productivity and efficiency” (The Art of Noticing, xv). Many of us really like getting things done — and fast.

People made in the image of a creative God ought to value productivity. But “the cult of productivity” is something different. Those shaped by this cult don’t simply like getting things done; they dislike not getting things done. And so they have little patience for stillness and silence, meditation and marveling. Unproductive feels unbearable.

So then, the phone and the to-do list, entertainment and efficiency, digital bombardments and hustle-bustle busyness — often, these are the enemies that steal our wonder.

How Then Shall We See?

These enemies are also difficult to resist, even when you know what they take from you. The sight of a real mountain may seem dull compared to a digital mountain — or the mountain of work we’d like to get done. Reclaiming wonder takes effort. It takes a willingness to pin down our twitchy thumbs and endure the sight of unchecked boxes as we reorient our vision to “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely” (Philippians 4:8).

I find help from two habits that draw from God’s creative pattern in Genesis 1:1–2:3: Daily look upon God’s world and call it good. Weekly rest in God’s world and be refreshed.

DAILY ATTENTIVENESS

Habit 1: At least once daily, attend — truly attend — to one of the wonders God has made.

This first habit borrows from Clyde Kilby’s “means to mental health,” where he gets more specific: “I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are.”

At least once a day, in other words, find something unentertaining and unproductive, some flower that unfolds its beauty only under the sun of patient attention. Press through the discomfort of undistracted inefficiency and slow down. Look. Listen. Notice. Consider something God created and “be glad” that he spoke it into being.

“Sometimes, the solution to our spiritual struggles is less spiritual than we imagined.”

As the biblical writers show, we do not lack wonders to choose from. The sun gives one reason for gladness (Psalm 19:1–6); insects give another (Proverbs 30:28). Gentle rains show one kind of beauty (Psalm 104:13); stormy winds show another (Psalm 148:8). We find unspeakable variety in God’s world — from sheep to sharks, earlobes to earthworms, tree rings to the rings around Jupiter — but they all share the glory of God’s original “good” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).

And if the objects of our wonder are many, so too are the means for observing them. The creativity of God invites creative exploration. Maybe journal daily just a line or two about something you observe. Or try your hand at some modest poetry. Or reclaim lull moments (like waiting or walking) for noticing. Or build a five-minute sanctuary in your afternoon where you simply sit, pray, and see.

Throughout Genesis 1, our God took daily pleasure in the world his words had made. So, why not adorn your own days with an answering “good”?

WEEKLY REFRESHMENT

Habit 2: Weekly, set apart extended time to get lost in the wonders of God’s world.

Daily attentiveness has a way of delighting us in the midst of our labors, sending us back to our screens and our tasks a little more free. But our souls cry out for something more than snatches of wonder. We want to hear more than a passing melody, want to see more than a corner of the canvas. We want to give our attention to the wonders of God’s world long enough to get lost in them.

Scripture’s celebrations of creation bear the marks not simply of attention but of extended attention. In Proverbs 30:24–28, the wise man’s appreciation of small creatures is exceedingly big. Our Lord Jesus showed a similarly patient pleasure in creation. He knew the ways of the wind and the signs of the skies (John 3:8; Matthew 16:2–3); he sat before wildflowers with enough awareness to see splendor greater than Solomon’s (Matthew 6:28–29). The wise care about wonder; they also know that wonder can take time.

Some of us feel wonder so rarely because we rarely (or never) walk through a whole day or even afternoon with the phone silent, calendar clear, and to-do list empty. We rarely let creation or those around us set the day’s agenda. And so the trails near home go unwalked, the best of books lie unread, quiet birdsong goes unheard, deliciously complex meals go unmade, and the images of God within our own home go unobserved, unmarveled.

Both in creation and among his old-covenant people, God set apart one day in seven for the rest that leaves room for wonder. Though Christians are not bound to keep the old-covenant Sabbath, God’s original six-and-one pattern still holds wisdom. But even if we choose a different interval, we need some kind of rhythm that refreshes the deepest parts of us.

Wonderers and Worshipers

Creation holds “untold resources for mental health and spiritual joy,” writes John Piper (When I Don’t Desire God, 197). But as he emphasizes, these “untold resources” do not belong to creation itself. They belong to the Creator. And so, we look to creation to see the Artist, not simply the art; we listen for the Author in every line we read.

In Psalm 148, the psalmist’s reflections follow a wonderful pattern: in meditating on sky, earth, sea, and man, he follows God’s creative work from day 4 to day 6 (Genesis 1:14–31). He puts his finger to paper and traces his Father’s lines, seeking to add his creaturely “good” and “very good” to God’s primal pleasure.

He is, in other words, not first a wonderer but a worshiper. Breathless, he beholds trees, clouds, cows, grass, storms, ships, laughs, stars, streams, and comes away saying, “His name alone is exalted” (Psalm 148:13). The countless wonders of the world bear one signature. God has written his name in everything good.

Maybe, then, the solution to your spiritual struggle is less spiritual than you thought. And maybe the God of Genesis 1 calls you to seek him not just through his word but through his world, daily and weekly rejoicing in him.

The title of this message is Everyone Is Everlasting — But Where? Where will everyone be beyond death, forever? I would like us to think together for a few minutes about your everlasting future — your future beyond this earthly life — including how your life now relates to the everlasting future of other people, especially those groups of people who, as we speak, have no access to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the good news of everlasting life through him.

Everlasting God

God is everlasting in both directions, past and future.

Before the mountains were brought forth,     or ever you had formed the earth and the world,     from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

That’s where we start. We start with God. Because everything starts with God. Little children will always ask, “Daddy, who made God?” And their eyes get wide when you say, “Johnny, nobody made God. He was there before everything. He was always there. He never had a beginning.” Glen Scrivener recently said, “Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.”

I remember at a critical point in my life pondering the mystery of the existence of absolute reality and thinking, Something has existed forever in eternity past; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, because nothingness produces nothing. So is the eternal reality some kind of gas, or is it a Person? It struck me with tremendous force that there is nothing before that reality to make it more or less likely that it is a person or a gas. In other words, there’s no reason to think that it’s unlikely that ultimate reality is a person.

Since we can’t think forward from causes to the nature of ultimate reality, because there are no causes of ultimate reality (nothing existed before ultimate reality), therefore we must think backward to the nature of ultimate reality from what we see now. And what do we see? We see the order and design and beauty of the creation declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). And our own human personhood bears witness that the image of God is stamped on the human soul. And we look at the witness of Scripture as Jesus Christ stands forth compellingly from its pages and wins our confidence, and we know that he, and his Father, and the Holy Spirit are one God — ultimate reality. That’s what is everlasting — in both directions.

Before the mountains were brought forth . . .     from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

Everlasting People

But we are not everlasting the way God is everlasting. We are everlasting only in one direction — namely, toward the future. We came into existence; God didn’t. But like God, you will never go out of existence. That’s breathtaking. In Acts 24:15, Paul said, “There will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” That’s everybody, the good and the evil. And Jesus said,

An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:28–29)

Nobody stays in the grave — nobody. Everyone is everlasting. But where? In the resurrection of life or in the resurrection of judgment? Cut off from God in everlasting misery or with God in everlasting ecstasy? Will you be in the new world of everlasting happiness or in the hell of everlasting torment?

Path of Eternal Misery

Why do people use the word hell the way they do? “Hell no, I won’t go.” “What the hell is going on?” Hell has become a linguistic intensifier. Why? It’s not because modern people don’t believe in it, but because we once did.

Jesus uses the word hell more than anyone else in the Bible. It wasn’t made up by the church to scare people. It was given to the church by Jesus. And he uses it to refer to everlasting misery. He refers to it as fire, outer darkness, wrath, and eternal punishment.

Jesus says, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire” (Matthew 18:9).
In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus said about the man without the proper garment, “Cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13).
In John 3, he shows that this fire and darkness is God’s wrath: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).
And in describing the final judgment, Jesus says of the disobedient, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

He speaks of the hell of fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, divine wrath, and eternal punishment.

And the apostle John adds in Revelation 14:9–10 that this everlasting punishment is conscious torment. It’s not the punishment of annihilation. Annihilation wouldn’t be punishment; it would be relief.

If anyone worships the beast . . . he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Revelation 14:9–10)

That’s one path of everlasting existence, the path of misery. That’s one answer to the question “Where?” The other path is everlasting ecstasy.

Path of Eternal Ecstasy

The ultimate purpose of God for his people is the exaltation of his glory in the everlasting happiness of his people. God’s glory and our happiness climax together, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. God created the universe for the happiness of his people in him, because nothing shows the greatness and the beauty and the worth of God more than a people who are completely satisfied forever in him.

Jesus said in the middle of his ministry, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And at the last day, when we stand before him, he will say to all his faithful followers, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

Jesus Christ, our Savior, died for this — for your joy in the presence of your Creator. The apostle Peter said, “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). And what do we find when we enter the presence of God clothed in the righteousness of Christ? We find this: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). There is no greater joy than full joy. And there is no longer pleasure than forevermore. The presence of God, with Jesus Christ, is the place and the source of happiness beyond imagination. It cannot be otherwise for the children of God, if God is infinitely glorious.

The Bible itself reaches for the best possible language to help us to feel that our everlasting life with God is the greatest and everlasting happiness. Psalm 36:7–8 says, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! . . . You give us drink from the river of your delights.” Why a river? Because great rivers have been flowing for thousands of years, and they never stop. I live within walking distance of the Mississippi River. I stand there and watch this mighty river flow. There are ninety thousand gallons per second flowing at St. Anthony Falls near my house. And I ask, How can this be? Century after century, and it never runs dry. That’s amazing. That’s what we are to feel when we read, “You give us drink from the river of your delights.” God’s resources of happiness are inexhaustible. And the result?

The ransomed of the Lord shall return     and come to Zion with singing;everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;     they shall obtain gladness and joy,     and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)

Everyone is everlasting. But where? It’s either everlasting misery apart from God or everlasting ecstasy with God.

Life in the Son

You have heard in all these messages what makes the difference between those two outcomes of your life.

The Creator of the universe — no beginning, no ending — sent his eternal Son into the world so that “whoever believes in him should not perish [not experience everlasting misery] but have eternal life [experience everlasting ecstasy]” (John 3:16). How did he do that? “He bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “All of us like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

“The ultimate purpose of God for his people is the exaltation of his glory in the everlasting happiness of his people.”

So, he will deliver us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). You do not have to perish. I offer you, in the name of Jesus, everlasting happiness in God. Jesus said (and I say to you), “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). Everlasting happiness.

And the connection with world missions, world evangelization, is Romans 10:13–15:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

You have the best news in all the world. Virtually all of you have it in your heads because you’ve heard it. And many of you have it in your hearts and are saved by it from everlasting misery. You are destined for everlasting happiness no matter how much you suffer in this world. You have the news that saves from eternal destruction. And there are thousands of peoples, tribes, and languages where the church has not yet been planted and the news has not been spread.

And the Bible says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). There is one God over all, one mediator for the world, one message for salvation, and one plan for the nations: You. Us. Missions.

Here’s what Jesus said to Paul, the Christian killer. Perhaps you will hear it as a call to you:

I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:17–18)

Implications of Existing Forever

As we move toward a close of this message and this conference, let me draw out five implications of this truth that everyone is everlasting, in misery or in ecstasy.

1. No Ordinary People

Everyone you know and everyone you will ever meet will one day either shine so brightly that, if you saw them now with your natural eyes, you would be blinded, or they will be so deformed that, if you saw them now, you would shrink back with loathing. Jesus said, “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). And he said of those who are thrown into hell, “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). That’s a picture of maggots feeding on flesh.

Someone will surely say, “You don’t take that literally, do you?” To which I respond, “What difference do you think that makes?” If it’s literal, it’s horrible. And if it’s metaphorical, it’s horrible. Because that’s why you use horrible metaphors. You grope for words to describe a horrible reality. Jesus chose the words. We didn’t. You are sitting right now beside future kings and queens or future devils. C.S. Lewis put it like this:

It is a serious thing . . . to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization —these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, 46–47)

If you believe that, it changes everything.

2. Life as a Vapor

This life is very short, a vapor. James 4:14 says, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” Psalm 103:15–16 says,

As for man, his days are like grass;     he flourishes like a flower of the field;for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,     and its place knows it no more.

If you devote your entire life to making your life on earth more comfortable and more secure, and to helping others do the same, without any vision for how your life counts for eternity and how your life helps other lives count for eternity, you’re not only a fool — you’re a loveless fool. Love seeks its happiness in what is the greatest and longest happiness of others, and God has shown where that is: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

3. Future Dominion

Your life after this earthly life is infinitely long and, therefore, infinitely significant. You may feel very insignificant now. You may think presidents of countries and CEOs of big corporations are significant — that people with power and influence, like kings and rulers, are significant. Here’s what John said about ordinary Christians in the everlasting age to come:

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:4–5)

You think ruling now on earth, like a vapor, is significant? Actually, reigning with God forever is significant. And as if we could add anything to that, Jesus promises to those who conquer the evil one and keep the faith in this life, “I will make [you] a pillar in the temple of my God” (Revelation 3:11). I don’t know all that that means. But this I know: if you remove a pillar, the temple collapses. That’s not going to happen. And that is significant.

4. Eternal Significance

This short life on earth determines how we spend our everlasting future. Therefore, this life is infinitely significant. You can waste it by following blind, famous people who make millions of dollars and don’t know their right hand from their left. Or you can lay up treasures in heaven by pouring out your life for the temporal and eternal good of others. The apostle Paul said,

We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:16–17)

How you spend this life, with all its possibilities for love and afflictions, prepares an eternal weight of glory. Your life now really matters. It’s a gift. Don’t waste it.

5. Sending and Going

One of the most significant ways not to waste your vapor-like life is for the next sixty years to seek your happiness in helping others be eternally happy in God, even if it costs you your life. You enlarge your own happiness in God by drawing others into it. The apostle Peter said to the early Christians, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). This is our life. We say to everyone who will listen, “Here are the excellencies of my Savior, my God, and my Friend. There is no happier place than to be in his forgiveness, his fellowship, and his everlasting joy.”

Don’t misunderstand. This is a missions conference, but none of us who speak here believe that all of you should be missionaries. You shouldn’t. You are not walking in disobedience if you become a God-centered, Christ-exalting, people-loving sender. There are three kinds of Christians: goers, senders, and the disobedient. The vast majority of you are not called to cross a culture, learn a language, and plant the church where it doesn’t exist. You are called, rather, to display the excellencies of Christ in all you do — to magnify his worth in the way you study, marry, raise a family, run a business, do your job, build relationships, enjoy your food and God’s other good gifts, love your neighbors, and serve your church.

The Bible says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). Every Christian centers on the glory of God, exalts Jesus Christ, and loves people. That is our pathway to everlasting happiness with God.

But this is a missions conference, and God has been at work in hundreds of you to loosen the roots of your tree so that it could be pulled up and planted in a place, and among a people, where there’s no gospel. That’s the main reason why this conference exists. That’s why many of you are here. He brought you here. These messages have been awakening in you, or solidifying for you, a sense that God’s call on your life is to be a missionary. When you hear the Bible describe a missionary by saying, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15), your heart says, “God, I want feet like that.”

Discerning God’s Leading

Here’s how we are going to close. We’re going to pray for a couple of minutes in quietness so that you can deal with the Lord about these things. And then I’m going to have some of you stand up so that we can focus our prayers on you and so that you can drive a stake in the ground, saying, “Lord, I mean this.” What you would be saying by standing is this:

I am not infallible, but to the best of my knowledge, I believe God is leading me toward a life devoted to him in cross-cultural missions. And by my standing, I simply indicate that when I go home or back to my campus, one of my next steps will be to seek out the leadership of my church and ask them to help me discern God’s leading and, if they see God’s hand on my life, to help me forward in my sense of God calling to be a missionary.

Simply put, it’s two parts: I believe God is at work in my life to lead me toward vocational missions, and I will seek the counsel and help of my church.

Some of you find yourself in the situation where you are not tied into a healthy church where you could do that. We don’t think that’s a healthy situation for you. But if you sense God leading to vocational missions, and you commit to finding a church where that kind of counsel and help can be given, I want you to stand also after we pray.

All of us have serious things to talk to God about at the end of a conference like this: your own salvation, your own holiness, your own compassion for lost people, and the glory of God.