Everyday Radical
What does it actually look like to make disciples of all nations? Everyday Radical explores what happens when ordinary people embrace an extraordinary calling: to make Jesus known everywhere.
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Everyday Radical
John Piper’s Urgent Message to the Next Generation
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In this episode of Everyday Radical, David Platt and Austin Huang talk with John Piper about Christian Hedonism, global missions, AI, and why joy in God fuels everything.
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Welcome to Everyday Radical, a podcast where we help the everyday Christian follow Jesus and make him known everywhere. We pray that today's episode encourages you to do just that. So let's dive right in.
SPEAKER_04Austin, here we are with John Piper. I uh I'm just gonna go and tell real quick um where I was sitting. So I definitely never met you, Pastor John, at that point. It was 1998. I was I was serving, like doing a summer camp, and this friend of mine had a tape from a passion conference. Uh, and the message was uh Christ died for God. And just I remember specifically we had a weekend break. So it was a Saturday morning we were like gathered around this tape later. I don't even know. Do you know? Have you ever seen a tape before, Austin? Like okay, like so pre-CD's tape, and I'm listening, taking notes, and this is like six or seven of us sitting around just listening, and I I by God's grace had grown up in the church and and heard uh yes, much of the gospel, but this God-centered perspective of life and everything was it just I mean, I remember where I was sitting, it just hit me in a fresh way, uh in a really for the first time in that way. And uh I'm so thankful, brother, for so in 1998. So here we are almost 30 years later. And yes, one to be at a conference with you, like alongside you, proclaiming this God-centered gospel, but but to see you 30 years later doing the same thing with uh another generation. Um, that Lord willing, if he tarries, we'll come. Uh yeah, that 40 years from now, they'll be talking about that moment in their lives. So anyway.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Pastor John, it's an incredible opportunity to meet you. Uh a couple years ago, I was back in college and I stumbled across your famous uh seashow sermon, Don't Waste Your Life, you proclaim to thousands of college students.
SPEAKER_04What year was that? That was like a couple years after that, 2000, 2001.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I was right when I was born, just about. And uh but it's really awesome that 20 years later you would have an impact on my life. Just so searching it up on YouTube. And I just wanted to say thank you for that. And also, could you take us back to your college years? Um, what were you most driven by at as a young man? And how did God take time in reshaping your desires in that season?
SPEAKER_02Um God saved me when I was six, I believe. Because I don't remember it. My mother told me that's what happened. That I got down on my knees at a at a motel in Florida and repented and trusted Christ. And uh I think that was true. I never was anything but a believer that I can remember. So in my college years, I was not wrestling with whether Christianity was true, but what was it? And how did things fit together? I I I wanted to be happy. I think everybody wants to be happy. I think God, I was thinking this morning, uh wanting to be happy is to the soul like getting hungry is to the body. You cannot not get hungry. And you cannot want to be happy, not not want to be happy. Yes, it's good. Um so and I just think that's universal. I think it's for for missions, for evangelism, and for life, that's a given. You'll you'll find that everywhere. People define happiness in all kinds of different ways. So that was a huge driving force for me, as I think it is for everybody, but I was aware of it. Like I wasn't sure it was good. I wasn't sure it was good to do missions in Chicago. So I'm in a suburb of Chicago, Wheaton, and weekend ministries in the city. What was a good motive? And I wanted to be happy, so is that okay? If that made me feel happy, if I slept better, if my conscience was clearer, if I enjoyed God more, had I just contaminated this moral act by getting so much happiness from it. That really was a huge issue for me.
SPEAKER_04Like it should have uh you should feel like this is a sacrifice. Self-denial. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02Self-denial. I mean, the missionaries that came to our church, and this is not in this is probably an indictment of my hearing, not their speaking, but is what I heard. Um, you want to be a missionary someday? You're gonna have to deny what you want and do what God wants. And I thought, well, certainly I should do what God wants, but might there be a third way? Like I could really want what God wants? That God's will for me might make me glad. David Livingston, I never made a sacrifice. Is that possible? So, anyway, there I am on the quest to be happy and not sure at all it was a good quest. And my folks had taught me God should be glorified. Whatever you do, Johnny, in word or deed, do all to the glory of God. So that's gotta be a motive. And happiness I can't avoid. And my life was being forged, my whole theology was being forged, unbeknownst to me in those days, as those two realities were not yet at peace with each other. I must live for the glory of God to make God look good, and I cannot but want to be happy. That that was the dominant thing. I mean, I could say a lot of other motives that were going on in my life. I was uh a sinful, hypercritical person. I remember that. Just you know, the the line in the dining hall, and I just comment on person after person what they're dressed like and their hair is like and I came to hate myself in that regard. And God bless Noelle. I fell in love with this woman, and I felt like I'm a jerk. I am an absolute jerk. Why would she care about me? Because I'm such a hypercritical person that had to be killed. And so those there were a lot of other things percolating down here that I could go into that everybody, well, that isn't true, but I was struggling with. Um so the coming together of my pursuit of happiness and God's pursuit of his glory was was the key in what overcame both my concern about is it right to want to be happy? And is it megalomania in God that he wants to be glorified? So he had two problems, two problems to be solved. Is it right to want to be happy? And is God right to want to be glorified? Like we don't like people that want to be glorified. Why should we like God? That was huge. And uh Christian hedonism, which is my life philosophy, teaches that both problems are solved in the same way. Namely, that God is not a megalomaniac in wanting me to glorify him, because that is the most loving thing he can do for me. Because for me to see him for who he is, savor him for who he is, show him for who he is, made me glad. And making me glad made him look good. Like if you're in the middle of suffering and God is enough, he's precious to you at that moment, he satisfies you in the middle of suffering. People say, how can that be? I what is it about this God? You make God look good if you are happy in the midst of your suffering. You do. That's what Jesus said. You know, blessed are you and persecute you and revile you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely. Rejoice in that day and be glad. Like, why? Because it makes God look really good if you rejoice in him when you are suffering. So he's not a megalomaniac. He's loving in summoning from me my highest joy. So I get my highest joy, he gets the highest glory, and and then you put it into a rhyme: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That that was the that did not that did not click until I was 22 at seminary under the teaching of Dan Fuller. C. S. Lewis fed in, Jonathan Edwards fed in, and it it was huge when that came together. Changed everything.
SPEAKER_04Was there a moment or a couple moments that like really crystallized it, or was it pretty gradual where this coming together happened of God's glory and your happiness?
SPEAKER_02It came together in a semester in a class on hermeneutics, and the text that my professor had written, which was not published, just a syllabus, uh, had in it a section called We Are Far Too Easily Pleased. That's a quote from Lewis' sermon on uh the way to glory. And the first so I so I went to get the book, went to the Romans bookstore, opened up this little blue book, first page says we are like children fooling about with drugs and sex, um, trying to make mud pies in the slums because we cannot imagine what a holiday at the sea is like. We are far too easily pleased. And I thought, you mean the problem with John Piper is not that he wants to be happy, but that he's too easily made happy. I said.
SPEAKER_04He doesn't want to be happy enough.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right. Your problem, Piper, and it's the problem with the human race, is that they don't want to be happy enough. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. You can't improve upon fullness and forever. That's Psalm 16, 11. I mean I I I've stood in front of thousands of students and said, I challenge you, come up to me after this service and tell me if you can even conceive of anything better than fullness of joy and joy forever in God. Full can't be fuller, forever can't be longer. Such a deal we have to give to the world, right? I mean, that's why you exist. That's why radical exists. We've got such a phenomenally good news to share with the world.
SPEAKER_04And to experience in our hearts on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_02There's just no way we will be of any use to the world if we aren't singing. You know, when you say sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth, or if you say, um, let the nations be glad, Psalm 67, and you're not glad that's just pure hypocrisy. Which means that to be a missionary must be preceded by becoming glad in God. I mean, George Mueller, one of my heroes, is because he said, I rolled 60 things onto the Lord this morning. They wondered how you could be so happy. He said, I rolled 60 things onto the Lord this morning. Love it. It's just kind of here. Take that, take that. You got broad shoulders, I don't. And he said, Um, I must get happy in God every morning, or I will not be of any good to anybody. That's what I felt as a young dad.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna go down to the breakfast table. There's the five kids down there. And if I go down grumpy, Jesus doesn't look good. I've got to get my heart happy in God. And it's got to be in the midst of a pastoral and fatherly burden that breaks your heart.
SPEAKER_03How do we how do we get there to the point that we actually find joy and satisfaction in God? Because when I think of my generation, it's everything social media, um, just drugs, alcohol, whatever it is, like you can fill in the blank with so many different things. These things are vying for our attention, our our affection, our devotion. So how do I practically put away those things and seek joy in the Lord?
SPEAKER_02Um it it really does um assume that you believe it's right to pursue joy. I mean, we've already said that, but if you say to a person that you must deny yourself this sinful pleasure, and it doesn't look like you're embracing a greater life or more significance or more pleasure, it'll never work. And that was the whole point of Thomas Sellner's sermon, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. He said the human heart is wired not to push out bad desires and leave a void. It cannot work. The human heart will not suffer a void, it will fill it. And therefore, the only way to push out the desires that are ruining people's lives is to put in alternatives. To do that, you must persuade them it's okay. You're far too easily pleased. Your problem is not that you're trying to be happy. That's not your problem. Your problem is you're you're eating mud pies in the slums. There's a holiday at the sea. Can I share him with you? Can I tell you why Jesus Christ is the greatest person in the world? I mean, I preached I preached a sermon at my church on supremacy of Christ and hope uh at the beginning of Advent in 2025. And I listed 20 supremacies of Jesus. Just because I think if you say Jesus is bringing, every kind of nods like yes, he is, but they don't feel anything. They don't have any specifics in their mind. And you just start listing the traits and qualities of the way he is superior to every human being, all the athletes you are in love with, all the movie stars, all the singers, all the artists, all the big people on campus, he's just a hundred times, a thousand times better in all the ways that are good. So why wouldn't you like him? Why wouldn't you admire him? Why wouldn't you want to serve him? So you you persuade people that it's right to want to be happy, and then you show them they're eating mud pies, which they don't believe right now because they they can't conceive of. They can't conceive of the alternative, which is why we need time with people. It's hard to drop a gospel bomb on people and have all their passions undone. God does that. I mean, I've heard testimonies of gospel bombs saving people, but by and large, um, we need time to build Christ and his beauties and his value into their lives.
SPEAKER_04And even uh would would uh yes to do that in others' lives, and it takes time to build this in our own lives through God's word, through time alone with him to build up new taste to ex to experience this. I mean, a child doesn't go, I'm trying to think of a good illustration, from eating baby food to enjoying a filet, like or whatever a fine meal is. Like there's there's a taste bud transformation that has to happen that actually takes work.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. And when we say that, a lot of people will hear, oh good. So that transformation from a taste bud that is delighting in Pablum, uh baby food, or in cotton candy, and now it is a taste bud that really can savor the steak, or for me it would be like pizza.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I'm with you on that.
SPEAKER_02Uh that takes uh a few years, and then you've got it done. That's not the case. I'm I'm old. I'm this won't air until I'm 80. Um I'm 80, and I know that my taste buds for Jesus can be callous, can become callous. And they need awakening and they need feeding every day. So this is the key back to the what can you do for the generation? In here are treasures, sweeter than honey, and drippings from the honeycomb is this book. If you have the right taste buds. So you pray that God would quicken the taste buds of your soul so that suddenly, oh my goodness, what have I been missing? I love the Bible, I love the God of the Bible. And then you've got 70 years to maintain the life of the taste buds, deepen them, sweeten them, feed them, put them into action. I mean, I just think there are levels of knowledge of God that I don't yet have. I mean, that's an understatement. We see we see through through a glass darkly now. But even in this life, I see things every day in devotions that are fresh.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I think it's a set it's essential to maintaining life here, life on the mission field. I mean, how do you survive? How do you survive not only the troubles of this nation, but the troubles you will have when you go overseas? I just did a funeral on August 9 of 2025 for a 12-year-old. And uh she died in a country and among a hidden people group because her parents, with eight children, had spent 15 years there leading people out of darkness into light, and um, she got malaria and gut complications, and she died. And she came back to the States from our there from our church, and uh we sang, the last song we sang was It Is Well With My Soul. And I stood up in the pulpit and just looked at these hundreds and hundreds of people that had gathered and said, How in the world can you sing that? She's dead. She's dead. And I let that hang because people really need to feel how weird Christianity is. I mean, here's this couple and their kids, and they're singing, It Is Well with My Soul. And then we sang, He is, Is He Worthy? the Andrew Peterson song. And that has a that has a line in it about missions and the nations and the peoples. And I'm watching my friend, the dad, because I take my cue on the platform whether I can lift my hands in worship by the family. I'm not gonna lift my hands in a funeral if they're not, because I don't want it to be perceived as callous. And that's when his hand went up at the missionary line.
SPEAKER_04Oh man.
SPEAKER_02And and then I wondered are they gonna go back? Can you survive the death of a daughter in a situation hundreds of miles from medical care with a totally unreached people group? I mean, these people before they arrived had zero knowledge of Jesus. And they lose their daughter, and six weeks ago, about, they went back with three of their kids. Their visas run out in January, which means that they're they're probably out of the country right now. This weird recording this on January 2. Um, and so they're home hoping they can be re renewed, but kicked out basically from this country. And they went back because they knew they had a window of six weeks before the visas ran out, and they sat on a green mat. He he emailed me this about four days ago, with peanuts and dates and water and a Bible, and for ten hours a day told these Muslims who were coming to express condolence about. The hope they had for their daughter and the basis of the hope in Jesus. And I thought, where where do you get the emotional resources to do that in the face of the death of your daughter? And and the answer is God is satisfying. He is sovereign over the death of your daughter. They don't they don't bow an eye at that. He is the Lord gives and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's what the Bible teaches. If if He wills, we live and we do this or that. So they found the resources in Christ to go to the mission field. And I hope they can go back. I hope they go. They're so effective. I mean, they're so amazingly. I mean, when it comes to missionaries, I love this couple and their willingness to die for Jesus.
SPEAKER_04I I want to make sure to mention, uh, yeah, for people listening to this, uh that because I we could go down a long road. Um God's sovereignty, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord in the middle of suffering. Um but John preached a message at cross conference on the meticulous uh providence of God and his sovereignty. So I would just commend that. Uh that that's one route to go a little bit longer road, uh down down that road. Um and then the other thing I want to mention, like as I'm thinking about that dad, that mom, that family, and I'm thinking about your life, and I've seen this in your life as I've got to know you more and been in settings where we spend a couple few days together. I'm Austin every morning when we're just getting together or sitting around a breakfast table or whatever. It's fresh joy from this brother just saying, like, it's like uh kid in a candy store. Like it's I just you gotta I mean you you you did it in this conversation this morning. I was thinking about happiness in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02Like this is well, actually, Lammock was on the front burner this morning in Genesis 3. Okay, and he said, I have killed a man for wounding me. I just stopped. I tweeted that. I tweeted that. It'll come up next Saturday. Uh huh. And I said, that bodes ill for humanity. Third chapter of the Bible, this guy's bragging about his wickedness. Now you'd think that would not make me happy. But that kind of insight into the massive mess this world is in is stabilizing. So, you know, whether it's bad news in the Bible or good news in the Bible, it's deepening and strengthening. Oh, I want young people. Where's the camera? Yes, yes, yes. Look at them all. I want young people to get in their Bibles and saturate themselves with the Bible. Then they'll become like oak trees. They'll, you know, delight yourself in the Lord. Yes, give you the desires of your heart, and you'll be like a tree planted by streams of water that bears its fruit in its season, its leaf does not wither, and in everything he does, he prospers. What an amazing promise for keeping your Bible saturated, keep your mind saturated with the Bible.
SPEAKER_03Yes. I just feel like my generation doesn't know how good this is. I didn't. I grew up in the church as well, and I did not know how good God's word was to restore me daily, even in things like the past few days. I've just been kind of like under the weather and feeling not the best version of myself. But I just reflect on 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16, says, So 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, it's preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. And it goes on to say, but the things that are unseen are eternal. And I just think that when I get so caught up in what I see, my circumstances, the things that are around me, the people around me, when I get so caught up in the negativity in my life, I lose sight of wanting to read this word. But then when I do, when I get into it after maybe a dry spell for a week and I haven't opened this up and I get into the word, it's like my eyes, like the scales off, just fall off of my eyes. And I yeah, I I need that daily. It's it's the daily bread that we are called to consume. And yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I just don't think that a lot of people will understand that I didn't for the longest time in my life. His word is living and active, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, able to pierce the division of soul and spirit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I would I mean, when I think, why is that? You know, why why why do even in the church young people not consider the Bible to be a treasure chest of joy? Um I I do not to be too critical, because I was one, I want to trace it back to the preachers in large measure, because their job is to is to spread a feast every Sunday that people enjoy. Their job is to spread a feast from this book. Like take you to the book and we're gonna eat. And you're gonna walk out of here, whoa, that was good. Why wouldn't I come back for that? Yes. Wow, that was good. And and I just I I fear that there are a lot of pastors who don't find the Bible tasty, thrilling. And so they're groping for illustrations and magazine articles and movie clips, and because this is not exciting. This is not satisfying. I have to get help somewhere else. And uh, I just so desperately want to say to pastors, you know, if you get on your face before God and you say, open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law, amaze me with what is amazing. He can change that because it's all amazing. I mean, it's all amazing. We just take so many amazing things for granted instead of just pausing to say, Good night, that's amazing. It's just amazing.
SPEAKER_04So good. I I'm uh I was in Psalm two, that was my Psalms reading today, and uh yeah, just an example. Uh he who sits in the heavens, talking about the nations raging. He who sits in the heavens laughs. And uh, yeah, that word obviously he who sits in the heavens is not afraid of what is anything that's happening.
SPEAKER_02Galaxies must shake if God laughs. Yes, yes. I mean, does it does anybody stop to think what that sounds like?
SPEAKER_04I'd say that laughing is a lot of things. It's all amazing.
SPEAKER_02Every sentence is amazing.
SPEAKER_04Well, and then I just immediately uh my mind went uh uh yeah, the woman in Proverbs 31 who laughs at the time to come. It's the exact same word. Yeah. Like, whoa, I can I can he shares this laughter with me amidst things that are really heavy on my heart. Uh not that it makes them funny in some trite, callous way, but in a way that removes all fear at the time to come. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I have no I can have no fear. Yeah, yeah. That's all from a phrase. It's just the the spoil that's here.
SPEAKER_02That dynamic, I don't know what's gonna come. It might be so horrible, I'll cry for days. And you can't have my heart, Satan.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Despair, you cannot have my heart. And I I think, you know, if if people wanted to get really specific and say, okay, where where shall I read? I'm saying, memorize Romans 8. Just memorize Romans 8. Because that situation is who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written, we are being killed all day long. And then it's huge. No, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So that that's the in your face. So Satan, make my day. You you think this misery you brought me into is gonna undo my faith? Go read Romans 8. Satan. Because it isn't gonna happen. It just isn't gonna happen. And and the reason it isn't gonna happen is not because I'm so strong, but because those whom he predestined, he called, and those whom he called, he justified, and those who mean justified, he glorified. He does it, he holds me. You've got me. They they sang for me last night. Did you hear me? Oh, yes, of course. Oh my goodness. We're not gonna sing happy birthday. We're gonna sing He Will Hold Me Fast. Yes.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it just doesn't get any better than He will hold me. Yes, that that had to be uh poignant. To be standing on stage with 12,000.
SPEAKER_02Because I can see about 500 people.
SPEAKER_04I can't see 12 thousand. But but praise God for how he has held you fast and uh to be able to confess that altogether with confidence.
SPEAKER_02Right. And and that's what younger people I think I looked up, I think you're 32 years younger than I am.
SPEAKER_04Uh what year were you born?
SPEAKER_02I was in 1978. Okay, I was born in 46. Okay. Yeah, 32. 32. Okay. So you're young. Yeah. Just young. And you're younger. And you you you you're not looking back and saying he told me fast. You're looking forward through the horrors of whatever God might bring and saying he will. He absolutely will. It says so. It's in the book. It's not in Piper's experience, it's in the book.
SPEAKER_04And and we actually need to hear that in the book every day. We did we didn't just need to hear that, oh, okay, I learned that. Like I I I can't go on today without hearing that this morning. Um, being reminded of that. I mean, I I certainly was as I listened to you talk about the meticulous providence of God. Uh just yes, yes, he's he's over it all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I think that's what's so frustrating about the reason why people don't get into this, younger people don't get into this, is because we, and this is switching gears a little bit, we have access to the internet, and more than that, we have access to AI. And I wanted to throw this question here because I saw the clip of you talking about AI at TGC last year. And at first, I will be transparent in saying that I was like, uh, no, I don't know if I agree with him. I don't know if I agree with John Piper on that. But the more I've gone about using it, thinking through it, walking with other people who have used it, hearing stories about it, I'm starting to change my mind. So I want to say thank you for changing my mind on AI and having a perspective on it that I think we get so lost in um thinking the world is progressing and so we need to change with it versus staying in what is what stands the test of time. Um when it comes to AI, Pastor John, what do you think about it? Can can can a Christian, a young believer, whoever, can they use AI to build their relationship with God, or would you caution them to steer clear from it?
SPEAKER_02I wouldn't caution them to steer clear from it because I think that's whistling in the wind. It's just as hopeless. It's as it's gonna be as present as Google. It's it's just fancy Google right now for for most of us, because we don't know how to do fancy things with it like reshape websites and so on. But uh so I don't think that's good counsel to try to say avoid it. Uh it's gonna it's gonna be so uh utterly prevalent. Um and therefore the question must be sh rephrased as how can I most effectively uh benefit from its potentials and be aware of its pitfalls. Um I think the the pitfalls are if it uh weakens you and robs you. I think Carl Truman this morning was talking about if it makes you less human because it replaces your humanity, it replaces a human in your life. And I I was thinking before he said that, that if it if it uh disables me in my powers to read, if it disables me in my creativity, if it disables me in my ability to communicate effectively, instead of strengthening me as a creative person, strengthening me as a person who can read better and communicate better, that's the measure for me. Is it helping me? Is it making more whole, more complete, more effective instead of taking away from me stuff? And I and I'm I'm just being sucked out, my life is being sucked out as this human-like thing takes over what I used to think my humanity was. And what the point I made there, and I've I've thought of it often since then, and it's a it's wonderful that my Christian hedonism is so relevant to AI because AI is called artificial intelligence, not artificial emotion. Nobody's saying that. Now you you can train AI to cry, and you can train it to make people cry and sing songs that move people. But it's not emotion. You know it's not, but it is a kind of intelligence, a kind of intelligence. And so that's significant, that's a significant realization that if you identify your humanity as largely, I have reasoning capacities. That's my image of God. That's my being created in the image of God. And then you realize, oh my goodness, this machine is smarter than I am.
SPEAKER_04Better reasoning capacities and development.
SPEAKER_02What's become of my humanity? I mean, that's a crisis. But my Enter Christian hedonism. Enter-Christian hedonism. My essential humanity is that I was made to enjoy God authentically enjoyed. Not just say in that clip that you looked at, I said, may I near it, yeah. Create a 100-word prayer in the spirit of Don Carson with his language praising you. I forget if I gave any more specifics, and uh and it wrote a prayer that was beautiful, stunningly beautiful, and just the way Don Carson would say it. And I said, Is that praise? Some people said yes. I said, That's not praise. Praise is felt adoration. If you're not feeling what you say, you we have a name for that. Hypocrisy. That's not praise, it's hypocrisy. That if you call that computer prayer a praise to God, you don't know what you're talking about. I am a praiser. A computer will never be a heartfelt praiser. It won't. By definition, it can't. It can be a thinker, but not a praiser, not a it can't feel. It can imitate feelings, it can say words that make feel, but it cannot feel. And me that means it cannot achieve the ultimate goal of the universe. And this has caused me to say things crazy like the point of the universe is feeling. It is. I mean, that's not that's not an overstatement. The point of the universe is feeling. I I heard a speaker say this morning, it's gotta be careful here. He said, don't fall for the lie that worship is an expression of your feelings to God. It's rather a being formed by God. And I thought, that's not good. That's not good. Worship is an expression of your feelings to God. I love you. I adore you. You are amazing. You are great. That's worship. And if it's not coming from the heart, it's fake. Well, computers will never do that. So I think AI is refining my theology in a really good way. It's helping me get clear on what humanity is.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes, what we've got to do. What it means to be in the image of God is apparently more than reasoning capacity. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and and yeah. And capacities to to figure out what's right and wrong according to some authority. But but but let's be I mean, so those are dangerous, but but uh I use I use Chat GPT every day. I mean, I don't use Google anymore, right? Restaurants, um let's see, let's see, how how old was King David when he died? I'm I'm just gonna ask. Chat GPT I mean, ordinarily, or you go to a cyclopedia, and you know, before the internet, I had an uh I had uh a concordance, a Greek concordance. It's just greasy with 20 years of use before computers. I never touch a concordance anymore. It's all in Logos, and now Logos is driven by AI. And so it's inevitable that we will use AI to answer many questions that we have. And realize it's fallible. Oh my goodness, it has said some stupid things. I mean, it AI is a fallible source of information, but it is also a very useful source. And so when you say, what use can it be? I'm just gonna say if it strengthens your faith, if it strengthens your human capacities for communication and creativity and reading and thinking, then God bless it. If it's weakening you, if it's stripping you of authentic relationships or capacities to communicate or capacities to think, capacities to read, capacities to express yourself, you're in trouble. Change your habits. Don't use it that way. Frankly, I have many unanswered questions. I mean, we're all babies, right? Yeah, sure. All babies when it comes to AI. Music is huge for me right now. I mean, just to give you a little illustration, stop me. Go for it. I wrote a poem for my wife on my anniversary three weeks ago. How many years?
SPEAKER_0457. 57 years. Wrote the poem. How many poems do you think you've written for Noel? Yes. I mean, obviously.
SPEAKER_02Five hundred? Sorry. Um so I wrote this poem called Um A Hard and Happy Year. It's got four lines, six verses, four lines each. And I went to Sono.com. Yeah. And I made a song. I don't know anything. I mean, I don't know anything. I just put the lyrics in the hall, the whole word says lyrics, uh-huh, pushed a button, it gave me five versions. Two of them you have to pay to hear, three of them you can listen to. It was unbelievably good. Oh, so good. I mean, I was I was crying for my song. I said, that's a great country western tune. Could you put it in the style? Legend. I didn't choose the style. It did it for you. It recognized. I mean, it had a little bit of a line in it that says um a year of uh heart attacks and broken bones. I mean, you can imagine what they're gonna do with that, right? Yeah. I mean, I can play it to you. I got them a phone. Come on, man, that's so great. But now you here's the here's the issue. I sent that song to John Bloom, one of my closest friends, founder of Desiring God. John's a musician and a songwriter. And he says, beautiful. And I just wonder, he said, I write songs for my wife, and I labor for days over the guitar to sing it, to make it this good. And frankly, I do not know what to say. At this point in my development, I do not know what to say about creator creative people who I can create songs that are more catchy and more moving than you can write. That's just gotta be. I mean, John was discouraged. I I think he was discouraged uh that that I could do that in ten seconds. And he would labor for days to make something. So, frankly, all that just to illustrate, we're we're on the cutting edge, I mean the front end of AI. We we don't know all the more moral implications of it in many ways, and I just think we need to be m vigilant with our thinking and our our biblical assessment so that we don't get sucked into destructive ways of using it.
SPEAKER_04Can I just hone in there for a minute? Because I think there's a word there too. Yeah, obviously not just for AI, that's for social media. That is for I mean TV, uh, I mean, uh yes, Netflix, whatever. There's so much like the I I wish we could just isolate that statement. We have to be vigilant to make sure that these things are, if they're not sources of edification in our lives, helping us, helping strengthen our faith, then they're weakening many times are weakening our faith, weakening our humanity, weakening who God has made us to be. And if we're not careful, we will be all be, yes, more and yes, younger generation, older generation, middle generation, whatever, uh conform to the pattern of this world so easily if we're not vigilant in these ways. And so that's I think that's just one takeaway for every one of us, uh, is what is vigil, what does that vigilance look like in each of our lives?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Which which goes back to being a well-taught, saturated with the Bible person. Uh you can't um face a new challenge morally, say the use of whatever dimension of the internet, and then at that moment come up with appropriate criteria if they're not there. Be do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can prove what is the will of God. Now, that that whole constellation of Romans 12 says you need to have prepared for this moment of encountering AI with years of transformation. You're a new kind of person. You see things through a lens that you can't create on the spur of the moment because you've got some biblical principles. You are being shaped. Isn't it interesting? I I've never known quite what to make of this. Uh um Paul in in Romans says, um, I remember it here. Uh be renewed in your mind. And if you says, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. What is that? Spirit of your mind. There's a tenor of thinking that enables you to judge that you can't quite quantify. You can't say, here are three crispy reasons, crisp reasons, uh, why this is wrong. You just you you can smell, it's not helping. It's not helping me. The spirit of your mind is discerning in the moment why that way of talking or that way of acting or that internet show or that way of tweeting or exiting, whatever the verb is now, isn't right. So I I just back again to that immersing yourself in the word of God so that not only a few principles are built in, but a spirit of your mind is built.
SPEAKER_04And isn't that what uh Psalm 1, that's where I was yesterday, you've quoted it already, is talking about. And when it meditating on it day and night, that uh yeah. That we in order to, I know we keep coming back to this, but I think because it's true, Psalm one, like this is where blessing, life, prosperity, treasure is found in day and night, from morning to evening, turning God's word over in your mind. And that's why we talk a lot about Bible memorization, because that the way that that's how one very clear way, practical way we can meditate on scripture and just constantly be turning it over in ways that our minds need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, people ask, you know, give me three reasons why I should memorize scripture, and and and it's that's not hard to do. But bottom line is your mind and the whole spirit of it is being formed every day. Advertisements are forming it, the neighborhood is forming it, your family is forming it, your health is forming it, church is forming it. Everything is forming. And this is what needs to form it. And one of the best ways to put it in a forming position is memory. It's memory. It's a mate, you know, if you read uh The Confessions of St. Augustine, he has an entire section, just mind-bogging. I don't think I I don't even think I understood it on memory in the confessions, in in which he argues of how profoundly significant the very concept of memory is. I'm old and I'm discovering how strange the brain is. Like right now, I'm just so thankful I can finish sentences with you because I'm in conversations, and David, that's you, I can't think of your name. In a conversation, and I've got three seconds before I have to use it again. And I know it starts with D. I mean, the brain is telling me it starts with D. And it has an A sound, and I can't get it. I mean, the brain is an awesome thing. And when it starts to break, you realize how incredibly awesome it is. God has given us wonderful brains, which maybe has some application to missions because, oh, use it. Use it while you can to know peoples and to know the Bible, to know the gospel, and to know God, and to give your your brain usefulness while you can, because you're not going to have it forever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You touched on missions. I would love to just go there. Yeah. For time that remains. Pastor John, when you look back at your life and your ministry, what has convinced you that living for the global spread of God's glory is non-negotiable for every Christian, not just missionaries?
SPEAKER_02Well, the Bible has persuaded me of that at several levels. Since I believe that the Bible teaches that God has created the world for the communication of the greatness and the worth and the beauty of Himself, that's a given for everybody in every situation. Your whole life, whatever you do, whether eat or drink, live to join God in that goal of glorifying God. So that's where I start. And secondly, you add to that, do you care at all about his global glory? Many Christians talk glory and they don't attach it to the nations. That's what happened to me in 1983. I'm three years into my pastorate, never have preached on missions. And they asked me to preach at the pastors' conference, and I'm in the middle of the sermon series that gave rise to Desiring God. I said, Well, I'll just do missions, the battle cry of Christian hedonism. And I've never been the same since.
SPEAKER_04You that was your first sermon. Mission sermon.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04It just all came together preparing that message.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And the the what came together was wait a minute, Piper, you're you're the glory guy. Everybody here would say, What's his theme every Sunday? Glory to God. Glory of God. And you haven't made the connection with the nations? What's wrong with you? These are called bad blind spots. And so I'll make the connection, and Tom Steller, my associate, has a meeting in the middle of the night with God and John Michael Talbot. Nobody knows who that is anymore, but he was a singer and he sang about the glory of God in the nations. And Tom and I both had an awakening totally unknown to each other in 1983. And from then on, missions was prominent at Bethlehem. We said, we've got to make this church a launching pad. That's the language we used. We got to get a nurture program to funnel these young people in there. But so I'm sick, I'm losing my train of thought here because how do you know or how what makes you believe that it's that missions should be a driving force, not just for missionaries, but for for everybody. When you start looking at how Paul, the first great missionary, um talked about other people besides missionaries, he called the Philippians, uh, I thank God for your partnership in the gospel, in the defense and imprisonment. Your partners with my imprisonment, your partners with my gospel, your partners with the confirmation. That's the word, the defense and confirmation of the gospel. What in the world does that mean to call the Philippians partners in his missionary activity, right up to the point of saying imprisonment, confirmation? And one simple answer is they the Philippians sent him money when nobody else was sending him money. They were a super encouragement to him. So he's thinking they are involved in my mission. They are essential to my mission. And then you have him write to the Romans, and in chapter 15, he says, I'm coming to you because I'm heading for Spain and I want you to send me. And in 3 John, it says, send them out in a manner worthy of God. So you've got texts in the Bible that show how there are people who are called to be goers, and the rest are summoned into very essential engagement with those people for their support and help. And then I don't think you can restrict um Matthew 28, 19 and 20 to missionaries. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me over everybody, including you. Go make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them everything that I've taught you, and I'll be with you. You want that promise? Lay person? Well, there it is, as you're engaged with this process. So everybody should be figuring out okay, if I'm not a missionary, how do I plug in to that text? Because I should be making disciples of all peoples, either directly or indirectly. So it's it's the text, the answer is the text have persuaded me that the task of completing the Great Commission is everybody's responsibility, one way or the other. And how how can it not be if you love the global glory of God, which I was inconsistent in not talking about, and if you love the coming of the Lord Jesus, this gospel will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. You're supposed to pray. Come, Lord Jesus, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy kingdom come. Come, Lord Jesus, wrap it up, finish it. And and if if you want that, you you better care. You know, I had a teacher, George Ladd, at Fuller, um, and he preached one time on uh hastening the day of God in 2 Peter, which sounds very strange for a sovereign God, that we can hasten the day of God. And he said, I only know one possible way to hasten the day of God, and that's finish the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_04So good. I'll never forget when I read his line that Matthew 24, 14 is the single most important verse in the word of God for the people of God today. That this this this reality, this promise should drive us. Why do you I mean you yeah, 1983 is when the Lord did this in your heart? Why why do you think so many pastor pastors and followers of Jesus don't make this connection? And I I don't I don't even as I ask that, I want to Yeah, why why why are we why do we miss it so often?
SPEAKER_02The simplest answer is we have a great enemy who hates the gospel and has been a uh happy lord of darkened peoples for centuries, and he is desperate not to lose them. Yes. That's one answer. Uh a more accessible answer, I think, is that sustainable missions really does grow out of God-centeredness. Pastors have asked me over the years if I want to mobilize and motivate my people for missions, what shall I preach on? I'd say God. If you preach on missions, they'll just be discouraged. And if you tell a group of pastors at a pastor's conference, um add the weight of world missions to the weight of your broken family and the weight of your people. I mean, pastors are just keeping their nose above water. And along comes Piper to say, or Platt, and say, get a vision for missions. That's what life is for. And they say, Oh, it just sounds crushing. And so you gotta come at it through God. Because if you if you if if you move from God and his centrality down to the task, then the task arrives with thrill instead of burden. And so I th I think a lot of pastors are just overburdened and they can't let themselves think of a program that I'm supposed to build and sustain for world missions when we I can't even motivate my people to do evangelism across the street and they feel inauthentic. And and I I don't uh I don't buy that. I I I don't think an emphasis on missions weakened anything at Bethlehem, my church. Um I don't think it distracted me from the care caring about abortion or social justice. Um I think it it strengthened everything because everybody felt authentic. Like, okay, we're real. We're real here. We can't just read sections in the Bible now and kind of close our eyes and say, well, we don't we don't do that here. You know, that's another another church. And it just here's a little thing that might be encouraging to some of the folks who watch. You know, I've heard so many people say, if you're not doing evangelism here, you won't do it effectively there. And I said, that makes sense. So I won't encourage, but I have a I have a doctor friend, he'll probably watch this. He's a he's a plastic surgeon who gives kids life with cleft pellets. So he goes to Ethiopia, goes to Thailand, goes to Egypt, and now he's full-time overseas. This guy could be making a million dollars, right? And he's fixing faces and tells the gospel to all of his patients. He's fixing these faces for them. And he said, that's not true for me. I found that as a rich ophthalmologist, not not ophthalmologist, uh plastic surgeon, in America, nobody asked me about my faith because I was rich. I'm a doctor. Here, everybody asks me why I'm here. I am always talking about the gospel here. So I just want to be careful and not generalize too quick to say, you know, here you look just like everybody else. There you have incarnated yourself into a people group, and they might want to know why. You might have endless opportunities that are not artificial at all to talk about the God you love because you're there for them.
SPEAKER_03It's good. And it's like these aren't exclusive, it's not evangelism or missions, it's both, it's everything. It's when you when you shared that, because I've heard that phrase before, and I think you shed new light on it. It just reminds me of the other phrase that I think a lot of people say is preach the gospel and when necessary, use words. And I just don't like that because I don't like it either. The gospel is words, like this is this is how God chose to speak it to us. This is we are called to preach the gospel using words.
SPEAKER_02I guess his people, I'm gonna be careful here, but yeah, people who talk that way probably don't believe in hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's a valid point. That was our last episode. Just talked about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I listened to that. Um, I mean, that that is to me, you know, I get into a constant discussion with some person that seems to have liberal leanings about I just I just want to say, do you believe in hell? Just cut to the chase. Do you believe people are lost and will perish with everlasting misery and torment? And and if they hesitate, then you kind of I realize where this theology is coming from. It's it's it's wiggling its way in order to avoid that. And there are various ways you can avoid talking about hell, and one is to do lots lots of good things for this world.
SPEAKER_04If you were to say to an 18-year-old, how does the global glory of God, how's that going to shape your decision making and your direction in the days to come? In a yeah, there's obviously a law. There's a book answer to that question. It's called Let the Nations Be Glad, and that would be I I would highly commend. It's one of uh I'll just go ahead and say this so I make sure to get it out there. I mean, for sure, uh I have not ranked them all top five or top ten, but for sure in that list uh of top five would be desiring God and let the nations be glad as far as influence in my life. So thank you, brother, for uh and I know I'm not alone in that, but I would just commend that to everybody listening. Like uh listen to, read, uh soak in those two books. But the the more nutshell version of uh yeah, uh 18-year-old, how does this shape the way you're thinking about your future?
SPEAKER_02The the first, the first effect it would have would be the same effect it has on me every year for 33 years of pastoring. Namely, as every missions conference rolled around, I said to Noelle, we need to get on our knees and ask, is this for us? Are we willing to go now? We keep sending and sending, mobilizing, equipping. Is it our turn? Because I'm standing up in front of our church and telling everybody they should do that. So should that 18-year-old. First thing he should do is, is that me? Explore that, be open to that. Look God in the eye and say, seriously, God, I am willing. You're just not a faithful Christian if you can't say that. I am willing to go anywhere, do anything that you want me to do. That's the first effect a love for the global glory of God would have. And if God over time leads him not to go, but to be a sender, then his mind is gonna shift, at least temporarily. I think he should reassess that every year, and and say, okay, I believe I'm gonna be in computers, I'm gonna be in medicine, I'm gonna be teaching third grade. I this is what I think God's called me to do. Then his mind shifts. How can I mobilize my network to be more engaged with the front lines? How can what I do have a ripple effect for the nations? Um give give me an example. I mean, um, because sometimes we think about short-term missions and longer-term missions, and there's so many different ways to conceive of that. And one is you can think of it as a one time deal to assess whether you're called, or you can think of a of a lifetime pattern. Like if you're a doctor and you build a clinic with six doctors precisely so that one of them can always be overseas. And then he comes home and the other one goes, he comes home and the other one goes to short term missions. I mean, I've seen clinics like this where Where their the whole mindset, even though they're not missionaries, their mindset is build a clinic that enables them to do dentistry or enables them to do uh obstetrics or whatever in a place where they just don't have any resources like that. So they they didn't all become missionaries. They became rotating missionaries. Um and and that's that would just be true of many kinds of uh vocation.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes. And it's a mindset, yes, that transforms you you were listing off all those partnership passages uh earlier in the conversation. I was thinking about Colossians 4, Paul in a prison saying to the saints in Colossae, uh pray for an open door for the gospel here and boldness for me to speak it. Like it's pretty fascinating that Paul would say the spread of the gospel right around me is dependent on your prayers and God answering your prayers in Colossae. Like this is true partnership. Like your prayers actually matter. Your uh giving actually matters, um, as you talked about in Romans and and Philippians. Your uh partnership in all kinds of ways really does matter. Like you actually have a unique part to play in this.
SPEAKER_02Paul's prayers and his request for prayers is mind-boggling. I mean, we have a sovereign God, he is meticulous in his providence, and he has ordained if you ask not, you have not. And you just shake your dead and say, You're God. You can do it. You're God, and you're telling me if I don't ask, you don't act. Now we have a way to explain that theologically, but if you just let it sit, it's it's mind-boggling. What we will find out in the age to come that God has done on the mission field because of prayer is staggering. It's just staggering. We we want to see returns of prayers. We want to see them. We want to keep a list, we want to give God praise for answered prayer. 99% of the prayers that He has answered, you don't know about. Not if you're praying the way you ought. I mean, if you're praying only for things that are measurable right there in your family, then you can measure them. But if you're praying, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, that will be done in Ethiopia the way it's done in heaven, you won't see what the effect of that is.
SPEAKER_04You just won't. And how much meaning does that infuse into your Monday morning that you get to be a part of that? Like that's a that's amazing.
SPEAKER_02It is amazing. And we should not not minimize the preciousness of the gift of prayer.
SPEAKER_03Pastor John, we have like a million more questions. Maybe you only have like five. So for the 20-something listening to this, watching this, who wants their life to count for God's purposes in this world, but doesn't know what the future holds, what encouragement would you give them today about participating in God's mission?
SPEAKER_02Um get to know God. Fall in love with God, put a priority on knowing God, loving God, showing God. Um I just think uh a a God besotted mind will be moved by God in all the ways that they ought to be moved. If life is a a a ship that's moving, um the the only way God will move the ship is if people are deeply, deeply in love with God. Um and I I th I I think that's not the same as um simple devotional life. It's really an enrichment of yourself with the knowledge of God. I think was uh Bonaventure in the Middle Ages who said people don't love God because they don't know God. And so I think the basic thing is get to know Him. Know God and your your mind will be changed, the spirit of your mind will be changed, and then God will have access to really sweet inclinations. You'll wake up and you wonder, why has my heart turned that direction now? Why am I why am I being touched more easily by that need than I was before? And the answer is because you're being formed in your mind, in your heart by the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_03That's beautiful. Amen. Would you mind praying us out and praying for those who are listening to catch that vision of finding our joy in God?
SPEAKER_02It is wonderful, Lord, to think how you sovereignly take a podcast recording like this and just put it where it needs to be. And so for those who are listening right now, I pray that they would realize this is an appointment. They didn't tune into this by accident. Your providence governs all things, including that. And I pray that you would use that and anything that we have said here that's true to glorify your name and advance your mission. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
SPEAKER_03Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Everyday Radical. We pray that it encouraged you in many ways. We do this every single week, so be sure to subscribe or follow to not miss the next episode. We'll see you then.