Rethinking Retirement

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 1

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

C R O S S W AY B O O K S

W H E A T O N , I L L I N O I S

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 2

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

Rethinking Retirement

Finishing Life for the

Glory of Christ

John Piper

C R O S S W AY B O O K S

W H E A T O N , I L L I N O I S

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 3

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

Rethinking Retirement

Copyright © 2008 by Desiring God Foundation

Published by Crossway Books

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

Originally published as “Getting Old for the Glory of God,” in

Stand, John Piper and Justin Taylor, general editors, copyright

© 2008 by Desiring God.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro-

duced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form

by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or

otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except

as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Chris Tobias

Cover illustration: iStock

First printing, 2008

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible: English

Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a

publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permis-

sion. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the

author.

ISBN: 978-1-4335-0637-6

CH

15

14

13

12

11

10

09

08

13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 4

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

Finishing Life for the

Glory of Christ

So even to old age and gray hairs,

O God, do not forsake me,

until I proclaim your might to

another generation,

your power to all those to come.

PSAlm 71:18

Finishing life to the glory of Christ means

finishing life in a way that makes Christ look

glorious. It means living and dying in a way that

shows Christ to be the all-satisfying Treasure that

he is. So it would include, for example, not living

in ways that make this world look like your trea-

sure. Which means that most of the suggestions

that this world offers us for our retirement years

are bad ideas. They call us to live in a way that

5

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 5

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

John Piper

would make this world look like our treasure. And

when that happens, Jesus is belittled.

Resolutely Resisting Retirement

Finishing life to the glory of Christ means reso-

lutely resisting the typical American dream of

retirement. It means being so satisfied with all

that God promises to be for us in Christ that we

are set free from the cravings that create so much

emptiness and uselessness in retirement. Instead,

knowing that we have an infinitely satisfying and

everlasting inheritance in God just over the hori-

zon of life makes us zealous in our few remaining

years here to spend ourselves in the sacrifices of

love, not the accumulation of comforts.

The Perseverance of Raymond Lull

Consider the way Raymond lull finished his

earthly course.

Raymond lull was born into a wealthy family

on the island of majorca off the coast of Spain in

1235. His life as a youth was dissolute, but a series

of visions compelled him to follow Christ. He first

entered monastic life but later became a mission-

6

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 6

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

Rethinking Retirement

ary to muslim countries in northern Africa. He

learned Arabic and after returning from Africa

became a professor of Arabic until he was seventy-

nine. Samuel Zwemer describes the end of his life

like this, and, of course, it is the exact opposite of

retirement:

His pupils and friends naturally desired that

he should end his days in the peaceful pur-

suit of learning and the comfort of compan-

ionship.

Such however was not lull’s wish. . . .

In lull’s contemplations we read . . . “men

are wont to die, O lord, from old age, the

failure of natural warmth and excess of cold;

but thus, if it be Thy will, Thy servant would

not wish to die; he would prefer to die in the

glow of love, even as Thou wast willing to

die for him.”

The dangers and difficulties that made

lull shrink back . . . in 1291 only urged

him forward to North Africa once more

in 1314. His love had not grown cold, but

burned the brighter. . . . He longed not

only for the martyr’s crown, but also once

7

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 7

9/11/08 1:03:13 PM

John Piper

more to see his little band of believers [in

Africa]. Animated by these sentiments he

crossed over to Bugia [Algeria] on August

14, and for nearly a whole year labored

secretly among a little circle of converts,

whom on his previous visits he had won

over to the Christian faith. . . .

At length, weary of seclusion, and long-

ing for martyrdom, he came forth into the

open market and presented himself to the

people as the same man whom they had

once expelled from their town. It was Elijah

showing himself to a mob of Ahabs! lull

stood before them and threatened them with

divine wrath if they still persisted in their

errors. He pleaded with love, but spoke plain-

ly the whole truth. The consequences can be

easily anticipated. Filled with fanatic fury at

his boldness, and unable to reply to his argu-

ments, the populace seized him, and dragged

him out of the town; there by the command,

or at least the connivance, of the king, he was

stoned on the 30th of June 1315.1

So Raymond lull was eighty years old when he

gave his life for the muslims of North Africa.

1Samuel Zwemer, Raymond Lull: First Missionary to the Moslems (New

York: Fleming H. Revell, 1902), 132–145.

8

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 8

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

Nothing could be further from the American

dream of retirement than the way lull lived out

his last days.

Dying to Make Christ Look Great

In John 21:19, Jesus told Peter “by what kind of

death he was to glorify God.” There are different

ways of dying. And there are different ways of liv-

ing just before we die. But for the Christian, all of

them—the final living and the dying—are sup-

posed to make God look glorious. All of them are

supposed to show that Christ—not this world—is

our supreme Treasure.

So finishing life to the glory of Christ means

using whatever strength and eyesight and hearing

and mobility and resources we have left to treasure

Christ and in that joy to serve people—that is, to

seek to bring them with us into the everlasting

enjoyment of Christ. Serving people, and not our-

selves, as the overflow of treasuring Christ makes

Christ look great.

9

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 9

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

The Fear of Not Persevering

One of the great obstacles to finishing life to

the glory of Christ is the fear that we will not

persevere in treasuring Christ and loving peo-

ple—we just won’t make it. We won’t be able

to say with Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7–8, “I have

fought the good fight, I have finished the race,

I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up

for me the crown of righteousness, which the lord,

the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day,

and not only to me but also to all who have loved

his appearing.” The reward of final righteousness

will come to those who have loved his appearing,

that is, who treasure him supremely and want him

to be here. So this treasuring of Christ must be

included in and part of the fought-fight and the

finished-race and the kept-faith. Faith includes

treasuring Christ and his appearing. You don’t have

faith if you don’t want Jesus.

So one great obstacle to finishing life to the

glory of Christ is the fear that we can’t maintain

this treasuring of Christ. And so we fear that we

can’t bear the fruit of love that flows from faith

(Gal. 5:6; 1 Tim. 1:5). We fear that we’re not

going to make it. And the main reason that this

10

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 10

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

fear of not persevering in faith and love is an

obstacle to finishing life to the glory of Christ is

that the two most common ways of overcoming

this fear are deadly.

Two Deadly Ways to Overcome

This Fear

There are two opposite ways to ruin your life in

trying to overcome this fear. One is to assume that

perseverance in faith and love is not necessary for

final salvation. And the other is to assume that

perseverance is necessary and then depend on our

efforts in some measure to fulfill that necessity

and to secure God’s favor. let me show why both

these are devastatingly misguided and deadly, and

then what is the biblical way of finishing life to the

glory of Christ.

Deadly: “Perseverance Is Unnecessary”

It’s a mistake to think that perseverance in faith

and love is not necessary for final salvation. A

deadly mistake. Jesus said in mark 13:13, “You

will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the

one who endures to the end will be saved.” Hebrews

11

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 11

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

12:14 says, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for

the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

In Galatians 6:8–9, Paul says, “The one who sows

to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corrup-

tion, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from

the Spirit reap eternal life.” So notice that the two

reapings are of corruption on the one hand and

eternal life on the other hand. Then he says in the

next verse, “And let us not grow weary of doing

good, for in due season we will reap [eternal life],

if we do not give up.”

So clearly persevering in the furrows of faith

by sowing to the Spirit and bearing his fruit of love

is necessary for final salvation. “God chose you,”

Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “. . . to be saved,

through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the

truth.” “Saved through sanctification” means that

sanctification—the path of love—is the path on

which saved sinners go to heaven. And it’s the only

path that leads to heaven.

So it is a tragic and deadly mistake to try to

overcome the fear of not persevering in old age by

saying you don’t have to persevere.

12

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 12

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

Deadly: “Perseverance Puts or Keeps God

on Our Side”

But the other misguided way of overcoming the

fear of not persevering is just as dangerous. It is

the way that says: “Yes, perseverance in faith and

love is necessary, and that means I must wait till

the last day for God to be 100% for me, and I

must depend on my efforts to secure God’s full

favor. God may get me started in the Christian

life by faith in him alone, but perseverance hap-

pens another way. God makes his ongoing favor

depend on my efforts.” That, I say, is deadly and

leads either to despair or pride. And certainly not

to perseverance.

What’s wrong with that? You can see what’s

wrong if you ask this question: When does God

become totally and irrevocably for us—not 99%,

but 100% for us? Is it at the end of the age, at the

last Day, when he has seen our whole life and

measured it to see if it is worthy of his being for

us? That is not what the Bible teaches.

What the Bible teaches is that God becomes

100% irrevocably for us at the moment of justifi-

cation, that is, the moment when we see Christ as

a beautiful Savior and receive him as our substitute

13

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 13

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

punishment and our substitute perfection. All of

God’s wrath, all of the condemnation we deserve,

was poured out on Jesus. All of God’s demands

for perfect righteousness were fulfilled by Christ.

The moment we see (by grace!) this Treasure and

receive him in this way, his death counts as our

death and his condemnation as our condemnation

and his righteousness as our righteousness, and

God becomes 100% irrevocably for us forever in

that instant.

“We hold that one is justified by faith apart

from works of the law” (Rom. 3:28). “Therefore,

since we have been justified by faith, we have peace

with God through our lord Jesus Christ” (Rom.

5:1). “There is therefore now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). So in

Christ Jesus—in union with him by faith alone, by

receiving all that he is for us—God is totally, 100%

irrevocably for us. And the implications of that are

spelled out in Romans 8:31–35:

If God is for us, who can be against us? He

who did not spare his own Son but gave him

up for us all, how will he not also with him

graciously give us all things? Who shall bring

any charge against God’s elect? It is God who

14

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 14

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is

the one who died—more than that, who was

raised—who is at the right hand of God, who

indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate

us from the love of Christ?

And the answer to that question is Nothing! Which

means that all those who belong to Christ will

persevere. They must, and they will. It is certain.

Why? Because God is already now in Christ 100%

for us. Perseverance is not the means by which

we get God to be for us; it is the effect of the fact

that God is already for us. You cannot ever make

God be for you by your good works because true

Christian good works are the fruit of God’s already

being for you.

“By the grace of God I am what I am, and his

grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary,

I worked harder than any of them, though it was

not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor.

15:10). my hard work is not the cause but the

result of blood-bought grace. “Work out your

own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is

God who works in you, both to will and to work

for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13). Working

15

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 15

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

out your salvation is not the cause but the result

of God’s working in us—God’s being 100% for

us. “I will not venture to speak of anything except

what Christ has accomplished through me” (Rom.

15:18). If we are able to do anything by way of

obedience, it is because Christ is already 100%

for us.

If every exertion you make in the discipline of

perseverance is a work of God, then these exertions

do not make God become 100% for you. They

are the result of his already being 100% for you.

He is for you because you are in Christ. And you

cannot improve on the perfection or the sacrifice

of Christ. If by faith you are in Christ, God is as

much for you in Christ as he will ever be or could

ever be. You don’t persevere to obtain this. Because

of this, you will persevere.

So when the fear of not persevering raises

its head, don’t try to overcome it by saying, “Oh,

there is no danger, we don’t need to persevere.”

You do. There will be no salvation in the end for

people who do not fight the good fight and finish

the race and keep the faith and treasure Christ’s

appearing. And don’t try to overcome the fear of

not persevering by trying to win God’s favor by

16

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 16

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

your exertions in godliness. God’s favor comes by

grace alone, on the basis of Christ alone, in union

with Christ alone, through faith alone, to the glory

of God alone. He is totally, 100% irrevocably

for us because of the work of Christ if we are in

Christ. And we are in Christ not by exertions but

by receiving him as our sacrifice and perfection

and Treasure.

Overcoming the Fear of Not Persevering

So what is the right way to overcome the fear of

not persevering in old age? The key is to keep

finding in Christ our highest Treasure. This is not

mainly the fight to do but the fight to delight. We

keep on looking away from ourselves to Christ for

his blood-bought fellowship and his help. Which

means we keep on believing. We keep on fighting

the fight of faith by looking at Christ and valuing

Christ and receiving Christ every day.

Kissing Away the Fear

Charles Spurgeon said that God kisses away the

fear of aging with his promises. Philippians 1:6: “I

am sure of this, that he who began a good work in

17

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 17

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus

Christ.” First Corinthians 1:8–9: “[He] will sus-

tain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our lord

Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were

called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ

our lord.” Jude 24: “[He] is able to keep you from

stumbling and to present you blameless before the

presence of his glory with great joy.” Romans 8:30:

“Those whom he predestined he also called, and

those whom he called he also justified, and those

whom he justified he also glorified.” No one is lost

between justification and glorification. All who are

justified are glorified. The point of telling us that

is to kiss away all fear. If God is for us, no one can

successfully be against us (Rom. 8:31).

The Key to Growing Old to God’s Glory

Therefore, perseverance is necessary for final salva-

tion, and perseverance is certain for all those who

are in Christ. The works we do on the path of love

do not win God’s favor. They result from God’s

favor. Christ won God’s favor. And we receive him

by faith alone. And love is the overflow and dem-

onstration of this faith.

This is the key to finishing life to the glory

18

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 18

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

of Christ. If we are going to make Christ look

glorious in the last years of our lives, we must be

satisfied in him. He must be our Treasure. And the

life that we live must flow from this all-satisfying

Christ. And the life that flows from the soul that

lives on Jesus is a life of love and service. This is

what will make Christ look great. When our hearts

find their rest in Christ, we stop using other people

to meet our needs, and instead we make ourselves

servants to meet their needs. This is so contrary to

the unregenerate human heart that it stands out as

something beautiful to be followed or something

convicting to be crucified.

It works both ways. Polycarp, the bishop of

Smyrna, illustrates both and what it may mean for

us to finish life to the glory of Christ.

The Perseverance of Polycarp

Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna in Asia

minor. He lived from about a.d. 70 to 155. He

is famous for his martyrdom, which is recounted

in The Martyrdom of Polycarp.2 Tensions had risen

2The following quotes come from this account as translated and

recorded in Documents of the Christian Church, ed. Henry Bettenson

(Oxford University Press, 1967), 9–12.

19

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 19

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

between the Christians and those who venerated

Caesar. The Christians were called atheists because

they refused to worship any of the Roman gods

and had no images or shrines of their own. At one

point a mob cried out, “Away with the atheists; let

search be made of Polycarp.”

At a cottage outside the city, he remained in

prayer and did not flee. He had a vision of a burn-

ing pillow and said to his companion, “I must

needs be burned alive.” The authorities sought

him, and he was betrayed to them by one of his

servants under torture. He came down from an

upper room and talked with his accusers. “All that

were present marveled at his age and constancy,

and that there was so much ado about the arrest of

such an old man.” He asked for permission to pray

before being taken away. They allowed it, and he

was “so filled with the grace of God that for two

hours he could not hold his peace.”

In the town, the sheriff met him and took him

into his carriage and tried to persuade him to deny

Christ: “Now what harm is there in saying ‘lord

Caesar,’ and in offering incense . . . and thus saving

thyself?” He answered, “I do not intend to do what

20

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 20

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

you advise.” Angered, they hastened him to the

stadium where there was a great tumult.

The proconsul tried again to persuade him to

save himself: “Have respect to thine age . . . ! Swear

by the genius of Caesar . . . Repent . . . Say, ‘Away

with the atheists!’ [that is, Christians].” Polycarp

turned to the “mob of lawless heathen in the sta-

dium, and he waved his hand at them, and look-

ing up to heaven he groaned and said, ‘Away with

the atheists.’” Again the proconsul said, “Swear,

and I will release thee; curse the Christ.” To this

Polycarp gave his most famous response: “Eighty

and six years have I served him, and he hath done

me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king

who saved me?”

The proconsul said again, “Swear by the genius

of Caesar.” And Polycarp answered, “If thou dost

vainly imagine that I would swear by the genius

of Caesar, as thou sayest, pretending not to know

what I am, hear plainly that I am a Christian.”

The proconsul replied, “I have wild beasts; if thou

repent not, I will throw thee to them.” To which

Polycarp replied, “Send for them. For repentance

from better to worse is not a change permitted to

21

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 21

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

us; but to change from cruelty to righteousness is

a noble thing.”

The proconsul said, “If thou doest despise the

wild beasts I will make thee to be consumed by

fire, if thou repent not.” Polycarp answered, “Thou

threatenest the fire that burns for an hour and in

a little while is quenched; for thou knowest not of

the fire of the judgment to come, and the fire of the

eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. But

why delayest thou? Bring what thou wilt.”

The proconsul sent word that it should be pro-

claimed aloud to the crowd three times, “Polycarp

hath confessed himself to be a Christian.” After

the crowd found out that there were no beasts

available for the task, they cried out for him to

be burned alive. The wood was gathered, and as

they were about to nail his hands to the timber he

said, “let me be as I am. He that granted me to

endure the fire will grant me also to remain at the

pyre unmoved, without being secured with nails.”

The fire did not consume him, but an executioner

drove a dagger into his body. “And all the multi-

tude marveled at the great difference between the

unbelievers and the elect.”

When we are so satisfied in Christ that we are

22

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 22

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

enabled to willingly die for him, we are freed to

love the lost as never before, and Christ is shown

to be a great Treasure.

A Charge to Baby Boomers

I am sixty-two years old—just about the oldest

baby boomer (January 11, 1946). Behind me

come seventy-eight million boomers, ages forty-

three to sixty-one. Over ten thousand turn sixty

every day. If you read the research, we are a self-

centered generation.

Likes: working from home, anti-aging

supplements, climate control

Dislikes: wrinkles, millennial sleeping

habits, Social Security, insecurity

Hobbies: low-impact sports, uberparent-

ing, wining and dining

Hangouts: farmer’s markets, tailgate par-

ties, backyards

Resources: $2.1 trillion3

What will it mean to finish life to the glory of

Christ as a baby boomer in America? It will mean

3Accessed 9-27-07 at http://www.iconoculture.com/microsites/boomers/

?gclid=COvX07OX5Y4CFSISQQod-x1QKQ.

23

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 23

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

a radical break with the mindset of our unbelieving

peers. Especially a break with the typical dream

of retirement. Ralph Winter is the founder of the

U. S. Center for World missions and, in his early

eighties, is still traveling, speaking, and writing for

the cause of Christ in world missions. He wrote an

article titled “The Retirement Booby Trap” almost

twenty-five years ago when he was about sixty. In

it he said,

most men don’t die of old age, they die of re-

tirement. I read somewhere that half the men

retiring in the state of New York die within

two years. Save your life and you’ll lose it.

Just like other drugs, other psychological ad-

dictions, retirement is a virulent disease, not

a blessing. . . .

Where in the Bible do they see [retire-

ment]? Did moses retire? Did Paul retire?

Peter? John? Do military officers retire in the

middle of a war?”4

millions of Christian men and women are finish-

ing their formal careers in their fifties and sixties,

4Ralph Winter, “The Retirement Booby Trap,” Mission Frontiers 7

(July 1985): 25.

24

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 24

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

and for most of them there will be a good twenty

years before their physical and mental powers

fail. What will it mean to live those final years

for the glory of Christ? How will we live them in

such a way as to show that Christ is our highest

Treasure?

The Perseverance of Charles Simeon

When I got prostate cancer and had surgery at age

sixty, I recalled the experience of Charles Simeon

and prayed that his outcome would be true for

me.

Simeon was the pastor of Trinity Church,

Cambridge, two hundred years ago. He learned

a very painful lesson about God’s attitude toward

his “retirement.” In 1807, after twenty-five years of

ministry at Trinity Church, his health broke when

he was forty-seven. He became very weak and had

to take an extended leave from his labor. Handley

moule recounts the fascinating story of what God

was doing in Simeon’s life.

The broken condition lasted with varia-

tions for thirteen years, till he was just sixty,

and then it passed away quite suddenly and

25

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 25

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

without any evident physical cause. He was

on his last visit to Scotland . . . in 1819,

and found himself, to his great surprise,

just as he crossed the border, “almost as per-

ceptibly renewed in strength as the woman

was after she had touched the hem of our

lord’s garment.”

He says that he had been promising

himself, before he began to break down, a

very active life up to sixty, and then a Sab-

bath evening [retirement!]; and that now

he seemed to hear his master saying: “I laid

you aside, because you entertained with sat-

isfaction the thought of resting from your

labour; but now you have arrived at the very

period when you had promised yourself that

satisfaction, and have determined instead to

spend your strength for me to the latest hour

of your life, I have doubled, trebled, qua-

drupled your strength, that you may execute

your desire on a more extended plan.”5

How many Christians set their sights on a

“Sabbath evening” of life—resting, playing, travel-

ing, etc.—the world’s substitute for heaven since

5Handley C. G. moule, Charles Simeon (london: The Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1948, orig. 1892), 125.

26

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 26

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

Rethinking Retirement

the world does not believe that there will be a

heaven beyond the grave. The mindset of our peers

is that we must reward ourselves now in this life

for the long years of our labor. Eternal rest and joy

after death is an irrelevant consideration. When

you don’t believe in heaven to come and you are

not content in the glory of Christ now, you will

seek the kind of retirement that the world seeks.

But what a strange reward for a Christian to set his

sights on! Twenty years of leisure (!) while living in

the midst of the last Days of infinite consequence

for millions of people who need Christ. What a

tragic way to finish the last mile before entering

the presence of the King who finished his last mile

so differently!

The Perseverance of J. Oswald Sanders

When I heard J. Oswald Sanders at the Trinity

Evangelical Divinity School chapel speaking at the

age of eighty-nine say that he had written a book

a year for Christ since he was seventy, everything

in me said, “O God, don’t let me waste my final

years! Don’t let me buy the American dream of

retirement—month after month of leisure and

play and hobbies and putzing around in the garage

27

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 27

9/11/08 1:03:14 PM

John Piper

and rearranging the furniture and golfing and

fishing and sitting and watching television. lord,

please have mercy on me. Spare me this curse.”

Passion: Making God’s Greatness Known

to Future Generations

That is my prayer for you as well. I close with

a passion and a promise. The passion is Psalm

71:18—a passion to make the greatness of God

known to the generations we are leaving behind:

“Even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not

forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another

generation, your power to all those to come.”

O that God would give us a passion in our final

years to spend ourselves to make him look as

great as he really is—to finish life to the glory of

Christ.

Promise: We Are As Secure As Christ Is

Righteous and God Is Just

The promise: Isaiah 46:3–4, “[You] have been

borne by me from before your birth, carried from

the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to

gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will

bear; I will carry and will save.” Don’t be afraid,

28

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 28

9/11/08 1:03:15 PM

Rethinking Retirement

Christian. You will persevere. You will make it

home. Sooner than you think. live dangerously

for the one who loved you and died for you in

his thirties. Don’t throw your life away on the

American dream of retirement. You are as secure

as Christ is righteous and God is just. Don’t settle

for anything less than the joyful sorrows of magni-

fying Christ in the sacrifices of love. And then in

the last Day, you will stand and hear, “Well done,

good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of

your master” (matthew 25:21, 23).

29

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 29

9/11/08 1:03:15 PM

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 30

9/11/08 1:03:15 PM

If you would like to further explore the vision of God and life pre-

sented in this book, we at Desiring God would love to serve you.

We have hundreds of resources to help you grow in your passion

for Jesus Christ and help you spread that passion to others. At our

website, desiringGod.org, you’l find almost everything John Piper

has written and preached, including more than thirty books. We’ve

made over twenty-five years of his sermons available free online

for you to read, listen to, download, and in some cases watch.

In addition, you can access hundreds of articles, find out where

John Piper is speaking, learn about our conferences, discover our

God-centered children’s curricula, and browse our online store.

John Piper receives no royalties from the books he writes and no

compensation from Desiring God. The funds are al reinvested

into our gospel-spreading efforts. Desiring God also has a what-

ever-you-can-afford policy, designed for individuals with limited

discretionary funds. If you’d like more information about this poli-

cy, please contact us at the address or phone number below. We

exist to help you treasure Jesus Christ and his gospel above al

things because he is most glorified in you when you are most sat-

isfied in him. Let us know how we can serve you!

Desiring God

Post Office Box 2901 Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402

888.346.4700 mail@desiringGod.org

DG_MinPage_5-5x8-5.indd 1

7/16/08 7:38:45 AM

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 31

9/11/08 1:03:15 PM

RethinkingRetirement.06376.i04.indd 32

9/11/08 1:03:15 PM