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Becoming Worldly Saints
Can You Serve Jesus and Still Enjoy Your Life?
By Michael E. Wittmer ZONDERVAN
Copyright © 2015 Michael E. Wittmer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-51638-5
CHAPTER 1
HEAVEN AND EARTH
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Jesus (John 12:25)
Can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life?
The spiritual answer is yes, of course. Serving Jesus may be hard, but he offers joy that words cannot express and the world cannot understand. Don't you know that JOY stands for Jesus, Others, and You?
I believe this, though "joy" in other languages doesn't form such a neat acronym — especially in German, in which Schadenfreude is not only too long to form an acronym but, even worse, means to take pleasure in another's misery. Leave it to my people, the gruff Germans, to steamroll the joy out of joy.
Still, the short answer is yes. Jesus came so we might "have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). Following him is the only way to live. There. Now that we've given the Sunday school answer, the one we know we're supposed to say, can we look at the question again, this time a bit more honestly?
Can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life?
Have you felt the tension between heaven and earth, between what you should do because you're a Christian and what you want to do because you're human? You would like to lay up treasure in heaven, but you also want to have some fun down here. Have you ever thought you might enjoy life more if you weren't a Christian?
Unless you feel the weight of this question, you'll never understand your nonreligious friends. Most people fear that following Jesus will steal their joy. They are used to living by their own rules, doing what they want when they want, and they're not about to let someone else tell them how to live. Even if he is God.
They'd rather sleep in on Sunday morning, then grab a few friends and head for the beach. Should they pass a church, especially one with stained glass and gussied-up people, they might roll down their windows and blast the defiant anthem of Billy Joel, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners are much more fun. You know that only the good die young. Only the good die young."
Can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life?
Unless you feel the weight of this question, you'll never understand yourself. Why do we often disobey God, doing the opposite of what we know he wants? Isn't it because we're not convinced his way is best, that deep down we suspect life would be better if we did just what we want?
I felt this tug-of-war as a child. I didn't mind going to church on Sunday nights until ABC started a new television series, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. I read every book in the Hardy Boys series and was enthralled by the trailers of Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy playing the roles of Frank and Joe Hardy. Every Sunday night I went with my family to church, secretly wishing we were heathens so I could stay home and watch Shaun and Parker on my black-and-white TV. The shows must not have been as good as the books, because in three seasons they were canceled.
I did watch B.J. and the Bear, another short-lived series about a free-spirited trucker, his chimpanzee, and the beautiful women he rescued each week. Many episodes ended with B.J. rolling down the road, a new fling in his cab, singing along with Billy Joel, "I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life. Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone."
Billy Joel didn't start the fire, but his lyrics stuck in my head and made me wonder if living for Jesus was all it was cracked up to be. Our Baptist heroes were William Carey, Hudson Taylor, and Adoniram Judson, missionaries who had sacrificed everything to bring the gospel to India, China, and Burma. I admired their achievements, but I didn't want to be them. I dreamed of being a tough ladies' man like Thomas Magnum P.I., Ponch and Jon, or Bo and Luke Duke. I knew Jesus wouldn't approve, but part of me pined for the vigilante justice that Kenny Rogers sang about in "Coward of the County." How great would it be, just one time, to take matters into my own hands and punch the thugs out? As Kenny explained, it can be weak to turn the other cheek, for "Sometimes you gotta fight when you're a man."
Could I serve Jesus and still enjoy my life? I wasn't sure. Sometimes I still wonder. Jesus left us with a mission, to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19). He demands that we go all in, making any and every sacrifice to follow him. He said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Matt. 16:24). Again, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, even their own life — such a person cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). These are hard sayings, and Jesus encourages us to count the cost before we commit. He may give us time, but he'll give no concession. Jesus doesn't ask for much. He asks for everything (Luke 14:33).
PLEASURE AND PURPOSE
Recent bestsellers, such as David Platt's Radical, Francis Chan's Crazy Love, and John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, rightly challenge us to devote our time and treasure to finish this mission of God. What could be more thrilling than standing before the throne of God, surrounded by "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language" (Rev. 7:9), and knowing that some are there because they heard the gospel from you?
I need their reminder that I will someday stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), and that to whom much is given, much is required (Luke 12:48). This is particularly troubling for me because I don't live in the most target-rich environment for unreached people. I live in America, not overseas; in the suburbs, not the inner city; and just outside Grand Rapids, a city with so many churches that we think we're witnessing when we speak to a Lutheran.
I own a four-bedroom house on a one-acre lot that requires constant upkeep. This week I spent $100 on crabgrass preventer and another $200 for a new heat pump in my basement. I would like to finish my patio deck and build a garden shed, but I'm currently saving for a car. The ratty Civic I'm driving is twenty-three years old — so I'm not exactly a profligate spender — but reading these books makes me wonder if I should duct tape it together awhile longer.
And that's a problem. This excellent emphasis on the higher purpose of heaven often stifles the simple pleasures of earth. David Platt was convicted that his megachurch needed to slash its budget to free up as much money as possible to help the poor in their city and northern India. They found $2 million, a few hundred of which came from cutting out Goldfish crackers from their preschool ministry.
I applaud Platt and his church for their radical commitment to Christ, but I wonder how they can pull this off without falling into a new form of legalism. I would struggle to justify any purchase — did I really need that coffee, this book, or a new smartphone? — when someone else desperately needs the money. One author confessed that he felt guilty for spending $50 on a discounted suit because the money could have fed a child in India for a year. Something seems amiss when we can't enjoy a cheap suit, not because it's cheap but because we fear we overpaid.
Our lives will shrivel if we allow our passion for redemption to smother the pleasures of creation. Being a Christian must not become an obstacle to being human. But the problem is even worse in reverse: When we eliminate our earthly pleasures, we inevitably limit the reach of our heavenly purpose. If we want to attract people to Jesus, our lives must be attractive. As Howard Hendricks told my seminary class, "If the gospel isn't working for you, by all means, don't export it!"
When I was in college, I sometimes had the privilege of driving our chapel speakers to the airport. I was particularly excited to take the evangelist who had inspired us with story after story of leading people to Christ — his waiter, a shoe salesman, even a guy fixing his car by the side of the road. This fellow had "it," and I couldn't wait to get him alone and find out what made him tick. I started our forty-five-minute drive with a soft toss: "How do you find the courage to approach strangers and talk about Jesus?"
The man told a story about leading a man to Christ. Then he told another. And another. And another. Twenty minutes in I realized he wasn't going to breathe. He told the same stories with the same tone he had used in chapel, as if he was preaching on autopilot to an audience of one. I felt guilty that he was exerting so much energy just for me. I felt even worse when I realized I didn't matter. He didn't see me or even care I was there; he was just repeating the same tired lines he had said many times before.
This evangelistic Christian had forgotten how to be human. He was passionate about the high purpose of redemption but seemed clueless about the simple pleasures of creation. He showed no interest in me. He didn't ask any questions about my life, and he didn't tell me anything about himself. I couldn't wait to get him out of my car, which made me wonder about his spectacular conversion stories. How many people prayed the sinner's prayer just to get him to leave?
God calls us to both heavenly purpose and earthly pleasure. These aims often compete. The afternoon I spent spreading mulch around my house was money and time I didn't give to missions. Conversely, the week I spent teaching pastors in Liberia was a week I wasn't home with my family. Heaven and earth may seem to compete, but when we look deeper we find they are actually complementary. A flourishing human life is the best advertisement for the gospel, and the gospel in turn empowers us to become better people.
Can you serve Jesus and still enjoy your life? Let me tell you a story.
CHAPTER 2
FABLES
We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose.
Donald Miller
What's your story?
I'm not asking for your backstory: where you grew up, who you married, or what you do for a living. That would be interesting, and if I met you I'd want to hear all of it.
I'm asking about your big story, the grand narrative that describes the world and your place in it. This is the story you tell yourself, sometimes subconsciously, whenever you contemplate the meaning of life. Your story has a beginning — where you think you came from; and an end — where you believe you're going. And since it describes both your origin and destiny, your story gives you a pretty good idea about who you are and why you're here.
You may be confused about your big story, especially if you're a Christian living in the West. Spend time online, in school, or at the movies, and you're bound to absorb the modern story of naturalism. This pervasive story says you might as well live for earthly pleasure, for this life is all there is and you only go around once. But then you go to church, where you hear that you were made for something more. This earth is merely a dress rehearsal for your real life, which begins in heaven the moment you die. So downsize and simplify: waste less time on earthly things so you have more energy to lay up treasure in heaven.
What's a Christian to do? The rest of this book will explain a better story that embraces both the high purpose of heaven and the normal pleasures of earth. And you'll appreciate this story more if you first understand why we often drive into the ditch on one side or the other. Naturalism and spiritualism are two extremes that deserve each other. We must reject both.
NATURALISM
C. S. Lewis describes the story of naturalism in his essay "The Funeral of a Great Myth." He says this modern myth, popularized by Charles Darwin, is the story of surprising and spectacular progress. Somehow, "by some millionth, millionth chance," matter and then life emerged from an infinite void of nothingness. Where did this one-celled amoeba come from, and how did it get here? No one knows, but amazingly it managed to replicate itself. Over many millennia and through many fits and starts, it slowly evolved "up to the reptile, up to the mammal." After billions of years and "another millionth, millionth chance," the mammals slowly but surely evolved into humans.
These humans then set about to "master Nature" from which they sprang. They developed culture, inventing "art, pottery, language, weapons, cookery and nearly everything else." They produced airplanes, computers, and Justin Bieber. Who could have guessed all this could rise from that amoebic fleck?
Lewis says this unparalleled story of progress is actually a tragedy, for eventually "the sun will cool — all suns will cool — the whole universe will run down. Life (every form of life) will be banished without hope of return from every cubic inch of infinite space. All ends in nothingness." The universe will fade to black as everything we enjoy — strawberries, chocolate, and strawberries dipped in chocolate — disappears back into the void. The writer in Lewis argues that this tragedy makes a compelling story, but most people think it's depressing. If life ends in death, not just for me but also for the whole universe, then what is the point? I might as well stay in bed and watch reruns of The Price Is Right.
Not only does the story of naturalism end in despair, but it also robs life of any higher meaning now. Naturalism declares that physical things are the only things that exist. There is no God, no soul, nothing that is not material. You may feel that you have met your soul mate, but your yearning is merely caused by a rush of hormones or chemical reactions in your brain. You may think you are connecting with God, but that just means the neurons are firing in the part of your brain responsible for feelings of transcendence. You may believe your dog is happy to see you, but really he just wants your food (that one might be true). There are physical explanations for everything. Matter is all that matters.
If naturalism had a theme song, it would be the plaintive cry from the band Kansas, "All we are is dust in the wind.... Everything is dust in the wind." We are nothing but specks of matter blown around by forces beyond our control. All we can do is swallow hard and resign ourselves to whatever fate sends our way. Ultimately it won't make any difference, for if matter is all that matters, then nothing really does.
SPIRITUALISM
Christians know that naturalism is wrong, but many run so hard in the other direction that they fall off on the opposite extreme. Naturalism lops off the upper story of life, and these Christians respond by brushing aside its lower, earthy side. Naturalism says matter is all that matters, so these Christians declare that matter doesn't matter or, worse, matter is the matter. They downplay our physical side, saying our bodies are merely temporary residences for our souls or, worse, cauldrons of lust that tempt our souls into sin. If naturalism sings, "All we are is dust in the wind," these Christians chant, "All we are is wind in the dust." That is, we are essentially spirits (wind) trapped in physical bodies.
Christians may be surprised to learn that spiritualism doesn't come from Scripture but from the fertile imagination of Plato, who lived in the fourth century BC. Plato was the student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, and like all great philosophers, he tried to figure out the meaning of life. The Greeks before Plato had told various religious myths to explain the origin of the world and how it works. You may remember their stories from junior high: tales of larger-than-life gods, such as Zeus, Apollos, and Aphrodite, who often got drunk, got naked, and tried to kill each other — like Vegas on a really bad weekend. Plato realized that no one believed these religious superstitions anymore, and he set out to explain the world by reason alone.
Plato looked around and concluded that this material world couldn't be ultimate reality because everything here broke down and wore out over time. Especially Fords. Plato posited a higher, invisible world, of which our physical world is just a copy. The higher world, which he called the Forms, consists of eternal, unchanging ideals. Our lower world, which he called Matter, consists of temporary, imperfect copies of those Forms. Down here we have Fords. Up there is the fixed essence of "car-ness."
Down here we experience kind acts. Up there is the pure form of "kindness."
Down here we have Cleveland sports teams. Up there is "mediocrity."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Becoming Worldly Saints by Michael E. Wittmer. Copyright © 2015 Michael E. Wittmer. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
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