He gave this explanation to a worship leader who thought that if he found pleasure in the event, it would be better for all.
John Piper was talking about a tract he came up with that asks, “Did you know that God commands us to be happy?” Piper says the question is annoying because the words “command” and “happy” are rarely seen together in the same sentence.
Interesting enough, this is more than a suggestion, or a positive way of thinking. It is a commandment, and we’re even warned what God will do if we aren’t happy:
Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
Deuteronomy 28:47-48
Anyway, Ken realizes the error of this notion that serving God should be miserable and self-inflicting, as though that makes it a better “sacrifice”.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2
Ken continues to describe the generation of which I come from, Generation X. My wife and I are probably squares compared to most Gen-Xers. He notes that for the first time in U.S. history that our generation is expected to earn less money per capita than our parents. Then he talks about tribal culture and it’s effect on the American workforce. I just finished working at a place where co-workers of older generations worried and fretted about social security and medical care. It was assumed that you’d work at the same mundane job for 30 years, collect your gold watch and retire. But I could never tolerate staying there. I can’t put it in better words than how Ken put it, “They would rather spend time in each other’s company than work 40 to 60 hours a week at a job they hated so that they could buy more things”.
Many American Evangelical preachers harp on how post-modern Americans don’t believe it objective truth. Ken would probably suggest, “Don’t sweat it.” He points out that the great men and women of the Bible weren’t handed a list of objective truths. They encountered the Living God, a transforming experience and a real person. They didn’t receive truth from theory but from subjective experience.
The last page in this chapter has been helpful for encouraging me to be a little more risk-taking and entrepreneurial. Ken describes my generation as being the antithesis of the “line-standing/dues-paying/line-waiting/droning-sameness/steady-as-she-goes/doing-the-right-thing types.” The downside is that it’s hard to find replacements for this droning jobs, but the upside is that we have a nation of emerging entrepreneurs.
This book reminds me of a passage that has given me confidence in the entrepreneurial ventures that I believe the Lord has placed before me:
But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, Deuteronomy 8:18