Great Quote from CT Studd – “Christ’s call is to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers, and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil’s clutches and the very jaws of Hell. This can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered devotion, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Just read a great article from John Piper that ties in very well with this “Life: On Target” theme that I’ve been thinking about. The big question that I’ve been wrestling with is related to the idea of nutritional content. Just as we look at the nutritional content posted on the side of the boxes of food that we eat, we ought to be looking at the nutritional content of the stuff that we expose ourselves to – including (in a very big way) the area of movies, TV, entertainment. John Piper discusses why he doesn’t have have a TV in this article from his website “Desiring God.” Good stuff. He’s got me thinking… again.

Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Watch Movies – by John Piper.

Now that the video of the Q&A at Advance 09 is available, I can look at it and feel bad all over again. Here’s what I regret, indeed what I have apologized for to the person who asked the question.

The first question to me and Mark Driscoll was, “Piper says get rid of my TV, and Driscoll says buy extra DVRs. How do you reconcile this difference?”

I responded, “Get your sources right. . . . I never said that in my life.”

Almost as soon as it was out of my mouth, I felt: “What a jerk, Piper!” A jerk is a person who nitpicks about the way a question is worded rather than taking the opportunity to address the issue in a serious way. I blew it at multiple levels.

So I was very glad when the person who asked the question wrote to me. I wrote back,

Be totally relieved that YOU did not ask a bad question. I gave a useless and unhelpful, and I think snide, answer and missed a GOLDEN opportunity to make plain the dangers of the triviality you referred to. . . . I don’t know why I snapped about the wording of the question instead of using it for what it was intended for. It was foolish and I think sinful.

So let me see if I can do better now. I can’t give an answer for what Mark means by “buy extra DVRs,” but I can tell you why my advice sounds different. I suspect that Mark and I would not agree on the degree to which the average pastor needs to be movie-savvy in order to be relevant, and the degree to which we should expose ourselves to the world’s entertainment.

I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.

All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it.

Sorry again, for the bad answer. I hope this helps.

Pastor John”

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

This past Sunday, I continued our sermon series “Life: On Target” with our week two focus on our relationship with the Lord. I’ll take a few minutes to summarize yesterday’s message here – and will be doing a couple of blogs over the next couple of days to talk a little bit further about some of the stuff that I shared on Sunday. There are a few great questions and comments that have come from some of you that I’d like to discuss further.

When we talk about living our lives on-target, we are recognizing the simple fact that six months from now, one year from now, five years from now, all of us are going to be somewhere in our lives. But what would it take to not just be somewhere but be somewhere on purpose? In order to see that happen, we have to begin to with a much greater level of intentionality and give careful thought to how we are living and the simple choices that we make, day-in and day-out, decisions that will determine what our future is going to look like. This past Sunday, we focused in on a particular couple of Scriptures – Philippians 3:12-17 and 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. In Philippians 3, Paul had a vision that was before his life – a vision that caused him to continue to press forward in his life, forgetting what was behind him, so that he might win the prize that was before him. His goal in life was to know Jesus – not just information about him. His goal was not to be religious or to be moral. His goal was “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” That vision caused him to continue to press forward, recognizing that he had not yet arrived or taken hold of this goal in his life. In 1 Corinthians 9, he talks about the level of intentionality and discipline that governed his life and the choices that he made. He did not live randomly or by default – but he lived with incredible precision and purpose in the choices that he made because he had this goal and this prize continually before him. He lived his life “on-target.”

Six months, one year from now, we are all going to be somewhere in our relationship with God. But it is the choices that we make today that is going to determine whether we will be “somewhere” or whether we will be “somewhere on purpose” in our spiritual walk. Some of these same principles need to govern our lives as well if we want to grow in our relationship with the Lord. What would it take for us to experience growth in this area of our lives? We need to embrace three simple but powerful principles:

1. Live With Clear Vision. The Scripture tell us that “without vision, the people cast off restraint.” Paul lived with clear vision before him, and it enabled him to live and to choose differently – to embrace a level of restraint in his life. We need to have clear vision of what we want to see in our relationship with God. This means that we need to be willing to slow down and consider honestly where we are at in our relationship with the Lord – to take some inventory in that area of our lives. Where are we at now? Where would we like to be?

2. Make a Plan in our Lives. With that vision clearly before us, we have to begin to consider what it will take to move us from here (where we are at currently) to there (where we would like to be.) In other words, in my relationship with the Lord, what hinders my pursuit of the Lord – what are the distractions that get in the way? What are the things that spoil my hunger for the Lord? Just as Paul disciplined himself to win the prize before him, we have to seek to eliminate those things that hinder our pursuit of the Lord – “throw off those things that hinder and the sin that so easily entangles us” as Hebrews 12 talks about. But we also need to think about the things that are going to help us in our pursuit to “know Him” better. What causes my hunger for the Lord and my relationship with Him to grow. I need to embrace those things and make them a priority in my life. Spending time in the Word. Committing to a life of prayer. Being in relationship with other people who are also passionately pursuing the Lord. Journaling. Fasting. Serving. What makes my heart come alive for him – I need to commit myself to prioritize those things in my life.

3. Schedule My Time. It may not sound terribly spiritual – but with the vision clear in our minds and understanding what it will take to accomplish that vision, we simply have to make the choice to give ourselves to the lifestyle that will move us from here to there, to help us to be somewhere “on purpose.” We begin to live with intentionality. What that simply means is that we need to take control of what we give ourselves to and determine that we are going to live our lives by design – choosing how we are going to spend our time at the beginning of a week, at the beginning of a day – and ensure that we are giving ourselves to those things that are going to help us grow in our pursuit of the Lord. For me personally, it means that I have to take out my calendar, identify those times of my week when I have time available to me, and determine with this vision clearly before me how I am going to use my time – and prioritize those things that are going to cause me to grow in my relationship with the Lord. Those free two hours on Tuesday night – instead of waiting until then to decide “what I feel like doing,” I am not going to be one who runs aimlessly as Paul talks about. I am going to choose and commit that my free evening will be spent in the Word or in worship or listen to a podcast sermon or with a couple of other believers talking about the Lord, etc. If I am going to commit to spend twenty minutes with the Lord at the beginning of the day, I am going to commit in my schedule to go to bed at a reasonable time so that I have the ability to wake up when the alarm goes off the next morning. Those simple choices make all of the difference in determining whether we end up somewhere or end up somewhere “on purpose.”

As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be doing a couple of other blog posts this week to develop this theme a little further – and even answer some of the questions that a few of you have already asked. Until then… gotta get to bed so that I can wake up early and start my day “on target.”

We started a new series at Bethany last week called “Life: On Target.” It is really a pretty simple idea that is behind this series. No earth-shattering new revelations here! What is the big idea… six months, one year, five years from now – we are all going to be somewhere! But what would it take to see our lives end up where we would like them to be. In our relationship with God. In our marriages. In our friendships. In our finances. With the calling that God has on our lives. It requires taking the time to get God’s vision for each of these areas of our lives and to begin to live with intentionality, with purpose, “on-target” to see that vision come about. It is never going to happen on accident – but with the right vision and the commitment to discipline ourselves, there is really no limit to what God can and will do in our lives. We have got to be willing to deal with the reality of where we are at currently in each of these areas of our lives, gain a vision for where we would like to be, and then make the tough choices to embrace the lifestyle of what it will take to move from here (wherever we might be in these areas of our lives) to there (where we would like to be.)
I’m in a season right now where I want to live with an entirely new level of intentionality with my life and the choices that I make every day. I am tired of making excuses and minimizing the seemingly insignificant choices that I make with my time and my commitments day in and day out. So this is one of those sermon series where I feel like I am preaching to myself – and the people of Bethany just get to come along for the ride. The truth is that there have been many in the church who are also seeking to gain a greater vision for what the Lord would like to do in their lives, in our church, in our city. And are willing to embrace the discipline that it is going to take to see that vision come about.

So… here’s three cheers for getting from “here” to “there!”