Daily Vigilance for Lifelong Productivity

0:00Well, ambitiously successful people rarely wait to cash in on a few big moments. They look for big moments. Yes, but if you look behind the key moments, you find that success is built day by day. They focus their life's attention on one steady goal. They work, they endure, they plot and they work toward one end. They're never content with just being busy today on Asbestar John daily vigilance for lifelong productivity. Today is Labor Day in the States, a holiday to celebrate American workers. And as we take this break from our daily work, it's a good time to ask why we work every day. Aaron writes in, Aaron is a busy aspiring church planter or 29 year old husband and a father of two toddlers. Very busy. Pastor John, I admire you, Aaron writes, I look at your life, this podcast, the books you've written, the sermons you have preached, and the way you seem to use every minute for God's glory. I want that. I want that. But I cannot have it right now.

1:02We have two little toddlers at home and I feel like I'm constantly fighting off distractions just so I can get the bare minimum done. I read productivity books, but I feel like a sluggard compared to you. How do you stay urgent, Pastor John? How do you manage the daily grind without losing your passion? Aaron, that is a great question. Here's how Pastor John answered a similar question in 2016. I think the first thing I should say is beware of wanting to be like me. You don't know the sins of my life. You don't know how much I have neglected. You don't know what the costs have been. The real question is how to be the fullest, most God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, loving, humble, mission-advancing, justice-seeking, others-serving person. You, you can be.

2:03Don't measure yourself by others. Measure yourself by your potential in Christ. That's the first thing that I felt I had to say because of the way the question seemed to be posed. Now, there are a lot of other things to say. Let me tick them off. The second thing I would say is give 10% of your focus in life to avoiding obstacles to productivity and 90% of your focus to fastening on to great goals and pursuing them with all your might. Very few people become productive by avoiding obstacles to productivity. That's not a good focus. That's not where energy comes from. It's not where vision comes from. People write books about that and make a lot of money, but that's not where anybody gets anything worthwhile done. Getting things done that count, come from great, glorious, wonderful, future possibilities

3:09that take you captive and draw your pursuit with all your might and then all that other stuff about getting obstacles out of your way. That's the 10% of broom work that you have to do. Third thing I want to say. Life comes to us in chapters that are very different from each other. If you are married and have little children, that's a chapter that needs a great deal of focus on the children. If God wills, there may be another chapter for you with different possibilities, different potentials and different priorities. The Lord will be pleased if you focus on the chapter you're in and live according to the demands of that chapter with all your might. Fourth thing to say. Give serious thought and prayer to what your big, all-consuming life goal is. The biblical expression of mine is found in Philippians 1.20.

4:09It is my eager expectations, John Piper, not just Paul talking. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed but with full courage. Now as always, Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me to live as Christ dies gain. So Christ magnified in living and dying, spreading a passion for that Christ into the lives of others. That's the goal. That's the big overarching goal. So find yours and make it work in everything you do. Fifth, get a sense of gospel-rooted accountability before the living God. That is, understand the gospel and the spiritual dynamics of how it works. You don't labor to get into a right relationship with God.

5:13The gospel dynamics don't work that way. You labor morning till night with all your might because you are in a right relationship with God. Philippians to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for ground, basis, foundation. God is at work in you. That's the gospel dynamic. By the grace of God, I am what I am and His grace towards me was not in vain but on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them but it was not I. The grace of God had already taken up residence in me and was at work in me. And if that is, if you get that order out of whack, you may accomplish a lot in life and go straight to hell with all your books and all your buildings. Let the Lord Jesus intensify this sense of accountability on the last day with the parable of the talents, right? Gave to one person five, gave to another person two, gave to another person one, came to call a account and the person with one heard those awful words.

6:15You wicked and lazy servant. I don't want to hear that word. I do not want to hear that word. I want to experience the opposite that the counterpart to those words from Luke 12, who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master will set over his household. I often thought those words when I was a pastor. I was over household. To give them their portion of food at the proper time, blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. I would be sitting preparing my messages or writing something or leading the family in devotions or something. And I would say come now Lord Jesus and you'll find me doing it. That's the opposite of wicked, lazy servant, bear it your talent and do anything with it. So that's number five.

7:15Number six, add to your sense of accountability before God a sense of urgency. We must do the works of him who sent us while it is day, night is coming when no one will work. John 9, 4 or Ephesians 5, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, make redeeming, literally redeeming the time because the days are evil or collusion for walking wisdom towards those outside, make the best use of the time. There's urgency in this. The days are evil and night is coming. 7th, do what you do with all your heart. Be done with half-heartedness. Oh, so many people limp through life, doing what they do with half of the heart, half of their energy. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing with your whole soul.

8:18Ecclesiastes 9, 10, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. Jonathan Edwards, resolution. Oh, probably had more impact on me in the last 30 years than anything else he said in his resolutions, at least, when he said resolved to live with all my might while I live. Those words took hold of me a long time ago that, oh, yes, Lord, the opposite, the opposite of this, 14 times in the book of Proverbs, the word sluggard is used, and then an ugly word sluggard, 14 times. And what's a sluggard? Chapter 20 verse 4, the sluggard does not plow in the autumn, and he will seek at harvest and have nothing. You don't want to be a sluggard. 8th, many chops fell a huge tree, man.

9:22This is so crucial because of how quickly we get discouraged after a thousand chops and the trees not down yet. I just finished listening to Robinson Crusoe. He may say, what in the world? What John Fiber listening to a teenage novel from a, I'd never heard some of these classics. So I'm listening to him. Robinson Crusoe, marooned on an island, all by himself, wants to escape, needs a boat. mainland is 45 miles away, might be cannibals over there, he's not sure he wants to go, but he needs a boat. He's got nothing else to do. He's going to make a boat. He finds a tree. This tree is five feet, 10 inches, I think, across at the bottom. He has an axe. It takes him, it takes him 22 days to chop this tree down. 14 more days to chop the branches off a year and a half to finish the boat with an axe.

10:24I'd chop on a tree for a day or two days. The tree is not coming down. I'm done with this tree. I can go work on some little tree. So there's a key. Many chops fell a big tree. You want to do something great? Don't quit. Keep chopping. Number nine, I got two more. Number nine, be willing to do many things in life cheerfully that at first you don't want to do. They don't come naturally to you. There is no worthwhile role in life that does not require you to do things you don't at first feel like doing or that only let you do what comes naturally. So be cheerful. Be cheerful in doing the parts of your life that you do not at first prefer to do. And lastly, number 10, I should put you to make it ten to be a nice round number. Lastly, find your niche. Find the thing you do love to do with all your weaknesses and all your strengths.

11:26Put most of your energies and your love there for Christ and his kingdom. Productivity isn't about technical hacks or tightening the schedule to fit more into your day. We begin with greatness, a great desire. People become productive by fastening onto great goals and pursuing them with all of their might. Yeah, we find calling this big enough to pull us through the doldrums and the discouragements of life. We seek after a goal for our lives that is worthy of Christ as a good word, good reminder, as we read all those sluggard texts and proverbs right now in our Bible reading. And for more on purpose, productivity and laziness, see the Asp. Book beginning on page 85 for a lot more on the steam that we've talked about in the past. Despite all this talk about purpose and productivity and work, I do hope this flavor day is a restful one for you. Next up, the primary barrier to doctrinal maturity. What's the primary barrier to doctrinal maturity? Spoiler alert, it is not IQ. Pastor John rejoins us in the studio on Thursday to explain why not.

12:29I'm Tony Rinky, see you then.