Audio Transcript

Welcome to a new week of episodes with John Piper on the Ask Pastor John podcast. Today we talk energy drinks. José writes in: “Pastor John, energy drinks are controversial in our youth group, and as someone who likes them, I was wondering if there are any negative effects or reason to not drink them. They help me focus and have energy during my work shift. I only drink one every two or three days, but I would like to have some spiritual insight in order that I may run this race without being slowed down.” He ends with a smiley emoticon. Pastor John, how should we think about energy drinks?

Well, it might be helpful to take our starting point from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians about how he navigates the whole area of appetites — whether food or energy drinks or sex. What do food mean to Paul? How does he think about what he takes into his body?

So here is the pivotal text for me. First Corinthians 6:12–13 says, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me’ but I will not be dominated” — and I would say or mastered or ruled or enslaved by anything — “‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other.”

Now let me pause there and say that there is a lot of controversy around what in Paul’s chapter here are slogans from his adversaries in Corinth and what are his own words. So, it might be a slogan: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” And so they are justifying all kinds of things. But whatever the case is on that point, Paul’s point becomes clear in what follows: “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will raise us up by his power. Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 6:13–15).

Bodies Matter

So clearly the upshot of those last couple of lines are the Lord is for the body; the body is for the Lord. The Lord will raise the body. And we are members of Christ, even in our bodies. In other words, the body really matters. So the body matters to God morally and in particular foods matter and sex matters and so the guidelines he gives matter. And what he says is, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)

Then he adds in 1 Corinthians 10:23 that “‘all things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.” So here is my paraphrase for José: 1) Energy drinks are lawful for me, but are they helpful to my real advantage? And I will come back to that. 2) Energy drinks are lawful for me, but do they dominate or master or enslave me? I will come back to that one. 3) Energy drinks are lawful for me, but does my drinking of them build up? Does it build up my faith and particularly does it build up the faith of others? So let me just give a thought about each of those questions that might help him navigate whether he uses them and how frequently he uses them.

1. For Our Good

All things are lawful, but are they helpful — that is, to my real, deep advantage? That is the meaning of the Greek word translated “to my advantage.” This is really part of a much bigger issue of the proper use of not just caffeine, but other stimulants: medications, Ritalin, Adderall, anti-depressants, and so on. So let me just give one crucial guideline that I think is implied in Paul’s wording, Are they truly helpful? Do they help me go after my deepest advantage?

This is my guideline. Are energy drinks (or whatever I am taking) are they masking deeper problems that I am not dealing with because I am masking them, or are they helping me really address and be freed from the deeper problems that I may have? I think that is the crucial question when it comes to the kinds of medications or stimulants that we take.

Are we hiding from our hearts? Are we hiding from sins? Are we hiding things that ought to be dealt with, and this is just a superficial overlay? If José or any of us is masking deeper problems with stimulants, then they are not being used as a gift from God for our good. They are being used as a flight from truth and from the good that God wants to do deeper down. So that is my note on the first paraphrase.

2. One Master

Do they master me? Do they enslave me? Why would that matter to Paul? Why does he say that? Why should it matter to us? Well, it should matter because we have one master who bought us at the price of his blood. We do not belong to ourselves, but to him. He calls us to live as free people, not enslaved people, so it says in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Anyone who uses coffee or soda or energy drinks or other kinds of stimulants or medication should ask, “Am I dominated by this? Am I mastered by this? Am I controlled by this? Am I living consciously as Christ’s freed man? Am I magnifying the price that he paid to set me free for him?” It says in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “But he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sakes died and was raised.” Are we magnifying his mastery over us or living under another master? That is the second issue that I think he should take into consideration. Here is the last one.

3. Loving Your Neighbor

Do energy drinks build up? “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things build up.” Why does Paul shift our focus? This is a really profound ethical question in the New Testament. Why does Paul shift our focus from what is lawful — he says all things are lawful — to what builds up? Now this is huge. In Christ we have died to the law: “You also have died to the law through the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4). And later he says, “We are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6).

The problem, then, with deciding what is right and wrong about energy drinks is that you could obey a law without love — without giving a hoot about whether you are building anybody’s faith. And so it is not adequate to have an external rule to solve this problem. Paul wants to go deeper. The reason Christians are set free from the law is not that we might become lawless, but that love would hold sway.

First Corinthians 9:21 says, “To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ).” So his freedom with regard to the law was being governed by another law which he called “the law of Christ.” And what is that? Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Or Galatians 5:14 says, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

So when Paul says to José or me or you or anybody else, “Energy drinks are lawful, but do they build up?” he means, “Be sure that your heart is set on the good of others and that your example to them and your choices are aiming to build people up in faith, that is, helping them trust Jesus and treasure Jesus and honor Jess above all things.”

So here is my summary — three guidelines for José and me: 1) Are they truly helpful? Are energy drinks truly helpful? That is, are they masking problems that I need to deal with or helping me deal with them? 2) Are they dominating me, mastering me, and obscuring that Jesus is my real master? 3) Am I using them in love? Am I building others up? Am I seeking to build my own faith and the faith of others?

Okay, but here’s the question everyone is now asking. Do you drink energy drinks?

I have a box of energy drinks in my office, and I probably don’t use them quite as often as José. He said every two or three days. And what I do is if I have got a pressing task, and I cannot stay awake, yes, I will go there. But that box that I buy at Aldi — you get them at Aldi real cheap — lasts a long time. A question like this helps me keep my finger on the pulse of whether I am defaulting to an artificial stimulant because I am so proud I won’t get enough sleep.

See, in other words, that is what I mean by masking. If my real problem is that John Piper doesn’t have the discipline to go to bed at night and therefore gets six hours instead of eight hours of sleep, and therefore, he is always falling asleep at his tasks and, thus, he resorts to an artificial stimulant. That is masking. That is hiding. That is running away from God and pride.