Life’s Too Short To…Play It Safe, prt. 2
Part 2 of series, “Life’s Too Short To…”
Wildwind Community Church
4/10/05
David Flowers
Last week we launched a new series called Life’s Too Short To… We began with the fact of the brevity of life – how recognition of the brevity of life is the thing that brings the perspective we need in order to make the most of it. It’s hard to squander our time when we realize how quickly it is passing. Indeed that’s the Biblical command we have been given, to make the most of this time:
Ephesians 5:15-16 (NIV)
15 Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
But something stands in the way of us making the most of our time, and that is the fact that there is a part of us – our bodies – the physical part of us – that has very different priorities than our spirits have. A commitment to make the most of every opportunity, you see, necessarily brings with it moments of insecurity, instability, perhaps even fear and various kinds of discomfort. Stepping out to grab the moment – carpe diem – seize the day – isn’t always easy. In fact it USUALLY isn’t easy. Remember what I told you last week, that our bodies basically seek comfort (feeling good), convenience (going for whatever is easy), and costless-ness (wanting to get everything without paying a price, especially if the cost is a little of our comfort or convenience.
But our spirits want to really live, not just get by – our spirits need to capture each moment and make it into something. That desire is expressed in the need of our spirits for four basic things.
First is passion and we talked about that last week – the desire to feel deeply about something. Today we’ll look at the last three needs of our spirits: prudence, permanence, and purpose. Remember, we’re talking about how life’s too short to play it safe, and how our bodies fundamentally encourage safe behavior and squash risk-taking, and our spirits fundamentally need to step out, take risks, and live on the edge of what God has planned for us.
We’ve already looked at passion, next is prudence. Now what I mean here is the opposite of what many think when they hear this word. Prudence simply means wisdom, doing what is wise. Yes, I believe your spirit has the need to experience adventure, to step out and take risks in order to become all God meant for you to be. But that doesn’t mean we should completely abandon all wisdom. Our bodies lead us to believe that wisdom means avoiding risks – playing it safe. But that is not a Biblical understanding of wisdom and prudence. Remember what we looked at earlier?
Ephesians 5:15-17 (NIV)
15 Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Here we see that living wisely, in God’s way of seeing things, means taking risks – means a rejection of the playing-it-safe lifestyle – means appreciating the time we have and making the most of it, but doing so within the guidelines of what God wants for our lives. Notice this passage says we are not to be foolish. In other words we should not assume that just because something scares us or makes us uncomfortable it must be what God would have us do, nor should we cast off the often healthy signals fear can send to us and become a moral code onto ourselves. But certainly it means that we must no longer allow our need for comfort, convenience, and costless-ness to set the limits for what God would have us venture into.
2 Corinthians 5:7 (ASV)
7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight);
This spiritual need for prudence is simply a need we have in the deepest part of us to live by a code – to have something guiding us and informing our decisions. Again I want you to notice that if we ignore God as the standard of prudence (the code) in our lives, we will simply exalt ourselves in His place. God’s desires for us will get stuffed, and our bodies will adopt as their code the meeting of whatever whims our bodies put in our path.
2 Peter 2:19 (GW)
19 They promise these people freedom, but they themselves are slaves to corruption. A person is a slave to whatever he gives in to.
Romans 6:16 (NLT)
16 Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval.
Our problem is that we are strangers and aliens to God, and we do not understand what it might mean for our lives if we live by His code, so we might think we’re playing it safe to just make up and live by our own. But that is an illusion.
Romans 6:20-23 (MSG)
20 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter.
21 But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
22 But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!
23 Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
There is no safety in living by your own code. The path of prudence, of wisdom, is in choosing to step out, take the risk, and give ourselves over to God, to adopt HIS code –as the standard for our lives.
The world has many misunderstandings about Christianity. One of them is that people become Christians because we wish to live in a bubble – sheltered, safe, and protected from a harsh world. But let me ask you this. Is that what Jesus did? Of course not! Is that what any of the disciples did? Of course not. If you know anything at all about the recently deceased pope, that’s not the way he lived his life. He was a man who stood in front of Soviet tanks when they rolled into Poland in 1979 – a man of deep conviction and courage. Is that what Mother Theresa did, isolate herself in a bubble and avoid the world? Far from it. Has Billy Graham lived all his life in a Christian bubble? He has spent his life far from home in hotel rooms and stadiums all over the world – a far cry from reading the Bible in his living room recliner with K-Love playing in the background, or The 700 Club on TV.
Now we’re not all Billy Graham or the Pope or Mother Theresa, or the disciples, that’s for sure. But you can tell a lot about the heart of a religion by who its heroes are. And from our heroes of the faith we learn that to be a follower of Jesus is not simply to seek God’s blessing and sanction on all our material comforts. Nor is it to rush headlong into things we fear merely so we can feel spiritual. It is to submit to prudence as God sees it – giving our lives over to His plan for them and being willing to take whatever risks need to be taken in order to keep our lives on that path. Your spirit needs a code to live by. Whose code will you choose? As Bob Dylan said, “You gotta serve somebody. It may be the devil, and it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Your body seeks to avoid spiritual risks (joining a small group, becoming a believer, stepping out to start that new ministry that’s on your heart, quitting your job and taking another one that allows you to be more of a servant to your family, church, or community), saying these things are not prudent – that they don’t make sense. If you know the story of Wildwind Church you know it completely didn’t make sense. We are here today because a group of people decided to stop listening to the needs of their bodies for convenience, comfort, and costless-ness, and decided they would be willing to endure a lot of inconvenience, a strong measure of discomfort, and pay any price necessary to launch a new church in Grand Blanc, with the conviction that God’s plan for us was to do something completely unique in this county. That’s why your butt is in a seat in this room today, and why I’m standing up here, and why a lot of people are here every week at 8 a.m. setting up chairs and a PA and nursery stuff and puppet stuff, etc. The path of human wisdom would never have led us here from where we were. But God’s wisdom, the prudence that comes from God, recognized an opportunity and prayed that we could be faithful and obedient in walking that path and see what God could make of it. You will choose a code to live by, a standard to follow. What standard will it be?
Proverbs 14:12 (GW)
12 There is a way that seems right to a person, but eventually it ends in death.
Does that seem prudent to you? It doesn’t to me.
Third is permanence. There is in each of us a burning desire to make a difference, to leave a mark in this world. Psychologist Erik Eriksson acknowledged this when he theorized that we all must choose between generativity and stagnation. We will leave a mark, or we will become increasingly self-absorbed. Every person of every religious persuasion faces this decision.
Remember the question I asked you last week. Are you a primarily physical being that just happens, through evolution, to have something like a spirit? Or are you at your deepest core a spiritual being who finds him/herself located (for now) in a physical body? Your answer to that question will determine how you pursue the need to leave a mark, to build a legacy. Some wish to make their mark by building big buildings, or inventing things, or amassing wealth. Some wish to make their mark by starting charities and foundations and living good lives. Others wish to make their mark simply through doing their best to raise good children (who subsequently make their mark by raising other good children – resulting in generation after generation of “good citizens.” Not a bad thing, but not very inspiring.)
But Christianity says that it’s not simply being remembered that counts, but what you are remembered for. We live in a world that has adopted pretty low standards. The world tells us that as long as you are basically a good person and try to treat others nicely, (tolerance) you are accomplishing something very important. Yet Jesus has not called us to be good, but to the admission that we can never be good enough and need his mercy and grace. Jesus has called us not to mere “tolerance” but to sacrificial love. I mean, wouldn’t you rather be loved than tolerated? I would. But the best the world can call us to is “tolerance.” The world basically has to hit the lowest common denominator – okay folks, even if you hate this group or that group, even if you despise this or that person, at least don’t do them any harm – tolerate them. You know why Jesus calls us to love? Because Jesus can produce in your heart the love he calls for. The world can’t do that. Jesus can replace hatred with love, bitterness with forgiveness. God has not called you to anything he does not plan on making a reality in your life if you’ll let him.
So the question becomes not whether you leave a mark, whether you leave a permanent legacy, but how high you’re shooting for when you say the word “permanent.” This world’s view of a legacy is almost as shallow as its view of accepting others. They can’t produce love in the human heart so they call us to “tolerate” others. And the best this world can call us to is work that leaves the world better than it was when we got here. That’s not an entirely bad thing, but God calls you to make a mark that will be truly permanent – to invest your life in things that matter enough to permanently alter the eternal futures of those you touch, BEGINNING in this world, but extending into the next. Permanence. What does that word mean to you? Your spirit seeks to leave a mark, to make a permanent impact. How will you pursue it? Will you be content simply with being remembered fondly after you die? Will you be content with erecting a building or starting a charity? Or will you find the passion of your heart through walking by God’s wisdom and allowing Him to use your life to make an impact that will literally be permanent? Will you allow God to use your life to bring His mercy and grace and love to everyone in your circle of influence? Will you dedicate your life to Him so that because of your life, people find the light of God’s love, marriages are saved, children grow up in healthy homes where parents love and respect God and one another, and those around You know that your life is lived for priorities that go far beyond itself? In the Christian faith, leaving a legacy ALWAYS starts in this world and extends into the next one. It’s not either/or. It doesn’t allow us to simply “find Jesus” for ourselves and then selfishly bolt the door and cling selfishly to our own faith. Nor does it try to find salvation through just being a good person and doing a lot of good things.
Legacy-building, for Christians – and those who might aspire to be Christians one day – makes an impact on the lives of others that is noticeable and significant in this world, and extends right on into the next because it changes the lives and the eternal destinies of men and women and children. Your spirit will never die. Neither will the spirits of any person you ever come in contact with. You never look a person in the eye who is a mere mortal. We are all eternal beings with eternal destinies, and to be a follower of Christ means that we value this fact, and understand that because of that we can have an eternal impact. What kind of impact will you choose? One that will eventually crumble, like an organization or a bridge? Or one that will be carried on forever in the lives of other eternal beings like yourself who God will allow you the privilege of impacting?
Finally is purpose. I could do a fifteen week series on this alone but I’m going to keep this very brief. It summarizes the other three we have talked about and brings us to a perfect close. Purpose. Your spirit wants to know that you are here for a reason. When you find your purpose in life, that will bring you a boundless sense of passion. You will adopt a code of living in a way that will help you fulfill that purpose (prudence), and you will seek to make your mark through pouring your energy into that purpose.
Your body has a purpose. Get its needs met. Sex when it wants it, food when it wants it, drink when it wants it, company when it wants it, solitude when it wants it, the recognition for a job well done, money, all of these things are purposes our body pursues, because our body’s purpose is simply to get what it wants when it wants it.
But your spirit isn’t that way. Your spirit doesn’t care about physical things like hunger and thirst. Your spirit cares about spiritual things like purpose, like meaning. Your body will be very content if you spend your life serving up whatever it has called for by way of a desire. But your spirit will wither and die because your spirit must live for a purpose beyond itself, beyond the needs of your body.
Psalms 139:13-16 (NIV)
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
If that is true, and I believe it is, no wonder we are so restless in this life until we come to understand it. God created you. He created you with exact knowledge of what your days would be – how long you will live – the time and manner of your death.
You are here at God’s discretion, and you will leave this world at his discretion as well. If you are confused about your life, about where you are going, about why you are here, then you must begin with acknowledgement of God as your creator and your sustainer. God created you for a purpose. God has a mission for you, something set for you to accomplish, something that if you don’t do it, it very well may never get done. God made you with talents and abilities that are unique and you have gone through experiences unlike those of anyone else. You are being prepared to impact this world in a way no one else ever has, or will ever be able to. You were created on purpose, to pursue and fulfill a purpose. Lack of confidence in your talents and abilities is not humility, it is sin. Lack of willingness to embrace God’s purpose for you because you do not feel worthy is rooted in fact – you are NOT worthy – no one is. But that’s only one side of the coin. The other is God’s grace – God’s favor that you do not deserve but that he offers anyway, calling you to pursue this undeserved life He has cut out for you. Ignoring this has led you to a life that is so far missing God’s purpose for it, and it is through the pursuit of God’s purpose that you will find appropriate expression for passion, be led to take risks that are prudent and centered in God’s desire for your life, and will leave a permanent impact on your life and the lives of everyone around you.
Proverbs 19:21 (NIV)
21 Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.
My friend, life’s too short to play it safe. You don’t have time to goof around. You don’t know that you have tomorrow, but today waits – carpe diem – seize it. Allow God to direct your life, put your spirit before your body, and commit your life not to meeting every need your body has for comfort, security, and costless-ness, but to allowing God to direct your spirit as it pursues passion, prudence, permanence, and purpose. God has a grand adventure in store for you, but finding and following that adventure will always involve the sacrifice of a bit of your comfort, a bit of your convenience, and require you to pay a price. I want to encourage you – urge you – in that area of your life where you’ve been afraid to step out – playing it safe – take the risk. Step out and let God prove to you His faithfulness. I’m going to take a moment and allow you to do a quick mental inventory and ask yourself if there’s any area where you need to be willing to step out and take a risk, and quit playing it safe. Let me give you a few possibilities – perhaps you need to pursue another job. That’s scary, huh? Perhaps you need to trust God with your money but you cling to it like IT’S your God. Perhaps you have been putting off joining a small group because you are afraid. Stop playing it safe. Perhaps you need to join a ministry at Wildwind and start serving. Maybe it’s time that you take Discovery and start moving toward the step of membership – committing yourself to serving God through this particular church. Maybe you need to apologize to someone and you’ve just been too afraid, or maybe there’s someone you need to confront in love. Maybe you need to finally stop mulling it over and commit your life to God and accept his forgiveness and leadership in your life. I think you know what you need to do but let’s take a moment to reflect.
Pray with me now: Father I play it safe by nature. My body screams for the fulfillment of every desire, and recoils from anything that might be risky, but every spiritual step, every new relationship, everything you have out there for me, will require some risk.
Lord there’s a certain area of my life where I know I need to take a risk but I have been playing it safe, you know what it is. Father, trusting You I’m going to step out THIS WEEK and take action in that area of my life. Help me not to ask you for faith or courage, but to exercise the faith and courage you have already given me, and allow You to come through for me and show me that you are faithful. I want to really live, not just survive. Show me how to trust You as I daily submit to Your plan for me. Help me to care more about following You than I care about playing it safe. Amen.
Now if you did that – if you committed in that prayer that you are going to take action in a specific area this week, go do it. Start today. And send me an email or email your small group leader about what you have done. Let’s challenge and encourage one another to stop playing it safe and seize the day.
