Living a Life that Counts // The Art of Living, Part 4

Christianityworks Official Podcast

Sure. We’re created to be an individual, but not in isolation – in community, and community doesn’t work if it doesn’t accept and love and value the uniqueness of each individual in it.

IS YOUR LIFE GOING TO COUNT?

Each minute that slips by is one less minute that you and I have to live on this earth. How we spend this precious time has everything to do with the sort of life we’ll have lived when it comes to an end. And so today, we’re chatting about living a life that really counts for something.

Now, when we’re young children, most of us don’t think about dying. We pretty much have this mind-set that we’re going to live forever here on this earth, but as time slips by, our own children come and then they go, and before you know it the grey hairs start appearing, and the thing that really surprised me? The body doesn’t work quite as well as it used to.

At first I was really surprised and then annoyed, and then a sense of my own mortality crept in. At some point, the stark reality that our life on this earth isn’t infinite becomes real in our consciousness – in our hearts. And that, my friend, is a sobering realisation.

Perhaps you’re at that point or maybe way beyond it or perhaps you’re not, but at some point many, most come to the realisation that the end is a lot closer than it used to be. At that point, how will we look back at our lives? Come on, how will you look back at your life? And just as importantly, how will others look back at your life? A life well-lived? A life with impact? A life with purpose? A worthwhile life? Or maybe not so much.

I remember being confronted by those questions when I read a book in my mid-thirties called, ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Cody – a business bestseller. One of the habits, the second one in fact, is to begin with the end in mind. In other words, to set your life on a course that gets you to where you actually want to go. He begins that chapter by taking you to a funeral – your funeral, as though you have a chance to listen to what other people will say about you when you’re gone. And the question that he asks the reader (me, as I read it) is this: Will the people say about you the sorts of things that you’d really like them to say, or not? And that right there is an incredibly confronting question because it speaks directly about the gaps, small or large, between the sort of life you’d really like to be living and the one that you’re actually living.

Are you really living the sort of life that you’d like to be living? Is it having the results, the impact, the outcomes, that you’d really like it to be having, or not? Because if it’s not, then the only way it’s going to change is if you change. The only way that your report card at the end of the day is going to be different is if the attitudes, the desires, the motivations and ultimately the things that you say and do become different. And with life slipping away with each tick of the clock, my friend, do you really have time to waste?

It was that very question that brought me to a complete turning-point in my life at aged 36, because I decided that there was a huge gap between what I wanted my life to add up to at the end of the day, and what it was going to add up to if I kept heading in the direction that I was heading. I was living my life by and large for me, me, and me. And that, as it turns out, is no way to get the results that I was really looking for, because the results that I was looking for from the people who would one day stand up at my funeral were about the positive impact that I’d had on their lives’ journey.

Some would call that maybe a mid-life crisis; I don’t know, but at some point we each need to ask ourselves whether our lives are headed in the right direction. So without putting too fine-a point on it, can I ask you quietly, gently, respectfully, is your life headed in the right direction? Jesus once told this story about a man. Luke 12:16:

The land of a rich man produced abundantly, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do if I have no place to store all my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I’ll do this. I’ll pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods, and I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

But God said to him, ‘You fool! For this very night your life is being demanded of you, and the things that you prepared, whose will they become?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich towards God.

That story had a huge impact on me because I was that guy. I thought it was all about what I could build; what I could have.

We’ve no doubt all heard that saying: “You can’t take it with you”, to which I would rather stupidly respond: “Well, you know what, if I can’t take it with me, then I’m not going”. Right; like that’s an option! At some moment in time, we’re all going. We’re all going to breathe our last breath. My heart will stop; your heart will stop; and within just a few short minutes, every cell in our body will be dead. If I had the opportunity to look back on my life in the weeks, the days and the hours leading up to that event, I decided that I’d like to be able to look back on my life with contentment and satisfaction.

Every life has mistakes and regrets – yours does, mine does. Things that we wish we could unwind; things that we wish we would have done differently, but the greatest tragedy of it all would be to get to the end and to look back on it all with way more regret than satisfaction. The greatest tragedy of all would be a wasted life. So is your life headed in the right direction? And if not, what are you doing about it? Well?

There’s something that the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians in the New Testament that had a huge impact on my life. It was the thing that God used to turn my life around, and just quietly, it’s still turning around. It’s still a work in progress. None of us is there yet; at least, I don’t feel that I am. Have a listen to these amazing words. Colossians 3:1-3:

So if you’ve been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ.

And then, just a little further down in the same chapter, verse 16:

And let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you.

For me, change didn’t happen (I mean real change, radical change, the sort of change that set my life on the course that would give it the impact and the results that deep-down I was secretly hoping for) until my perspective changed. Once I stopped focusing on this life, what I could get out of it, what I could build, and once I lifted my gaze – set my mind on heavenly things, the things that are above, the things that will last, rather than the earthly things that seem to satisfy today but in reality are as fleeting as the morning mist – what I wanted actually changed. What I desired changed, and my life started to turn around and head in the right direction. Up until then, I tried everything – I mean, everything! The only thing that worked was following Jesus Christ; setting my heart on Him.

And so if I died tonight, would I be content with the life that I’ve led? Well of course, there are still some things that I’d love to do and love to achieve, but if the Lord called me home tonight, if this is it, you know what? I’m content with the life I’ve lived. You can’t ask for much more than that.

IMPACTING YOUR COMMUNITY

You see, in the west, we think as individuals – individual freedom, individual belief, individual rights, individual this and that. Now to a point, it’s of course great to have individual freedoms, but in eastern cultures people think far more collectively – as families, as communities, and that brings in a strong component of mutual responsibility and respect. Take either of those to the extreme (individualism or collectivism) and that’s not a good thing, but I guess the point I’m trying to get to is that if my life and your life are going to have a real impact, if we’re going to leave a lasting legacy, then a part of who we are needs to be serving our communities – serving other people.

I want to come to the western concept of church, and whilst a lot of good things happen in church, yet I see so many people struggling to find genuine connection; genuine belonging; genuine community in church scenarios. And whatever you may believe, whatever faith or belief-system you may ascribe to, come on; community is really important.

Have you ever wondered what community really is? To me it’s not a complete subjugation of the individual. We’re all individuals. No two people look alike, except maybe the very rare sets of identical twins, and even then, no two people have the same abilities, skills, outlooks, and experience. Each of us is unique, and uniqueness was never meant to mean isolation, which is what individualism leads to for many.

Do you see the kind of paradox that emerges here? Sure. We’re created to be an individual, but not in isolation – in community, and community doesn’t work if it doesn’t accept and love and value the uniqueness of each individual in it. That doesn’t mean that we have to say that everything someone does or believes or thinks is right. Clearly, there are times when in a community, people do do the wrong things, and that’s where community brings a sense of mutual obligation into play.

Can I ask you something? What part do you play in your community? How do you contribute to your community? Do other people benefit from your uniqueness in the relationship of genuine family and community? Because if not, then I don’t believe you’re living the life you were made to live. None of us was ever made to live in isolation, yet I see so many people bruised, hurt, injured by others, withdrawing into their shells a bit like a hermit-crab, as though that’s a solution to anything.

Come on; community is laughing and crying together. Community is sharing the ups and the downs. Community is serving each other, and benefitting from each other, and benefitting from serving one another. The most beautiful picture that I’ve ever come across of community is a picture that I find in God’s Word (the Bible) in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 12:15:

If a foot would say, ‘Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body’, that wouldn’t make it any less part of the body. And if the ear would say, ‘Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body’, that wouldn’t make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would our sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as He chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members in the one body.

The eye can’t say to the hand, ‘Look, I don’t need you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I don’t need you’. On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are actually indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable, we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, whereas our more respectable members don’t need this.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior members that there may be no dissension within the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. Because if one member suffers, all suffer together with it. If one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

Can I ask you, what part are you playing in your community – this beautiful picture of a body – your church, your local neighbourhood or your block of apartments? Do you serve the person in need next-door? Anyone who wants to have an impact in this world needs to be part of their community – serving it, and benefitting from it.

The problem is that too often we’re too busy worrying about us. Too often we’re too concerned about who’s on the top of the heap; who’s got the best reputation; who’s going to get the accolades; the most money; the nicest house; the most well-adjusted children; wealth … and so it goes on. Greatness isn’t about winning; it’s about losing.

Being the first is really about being the last. That’s what that picture in the Bible is talking about. That’s what Jesus said. In setting straight the religious leaders of His day, who for the most part were hypocrites who manipulated the common folk in the name of God and religion, this is what Jesus said. Matthew 23:11-12:

The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Do you want to live a life that will have people remembering you when you’re gone – with fondness, with a sense of gratitude for the impact you had in their lives? Then my friend, it’s time to focus on your community. How can you serve? How can you make a difference? Is there sacrifice involved? Yeah. Absolutely, but at the end of the day, there’s nothing so satisfying as using your unique gifts to serve others, even when that serving is hard.

That’s what community is. God made us not as loners, not as hermit crabs to live in isolation; He made us to be social beings. Community creatures. And if perhaps you’re one of those people who’s forgotten what community is, whether in a church setting or frankly in any other setting, maybe today is the day to repent that. Maybe today is the day to engage, to become part of, to serve, to sacrifice for your community. That’s what it means to live a life that counts.

TEARING DOWN THE WALLS

That picture of the Berlin Wall is a powerful one. Germany, you may recall, after World War Two was separated into east and west by the allies. Berlin was in the soviet zone, so as part of the arrangement between the allies, Berlin itself was divided so that the soviets controlled one part, and the democratic government of West Germany controlled the other. The wall was a terrible thing: Separating families, parents from their children, husbands from their wives … It was a brutal thing of division and suspicion. I wish we had time to chat about the events that culminated in its destruction in 1989. It was a fascinating time in history.

Nevertheless, walls are always damaging. Sometimes they exist as physical structures, but most often they live in the hearts of people. We saw it for centuries in Northern Ireland where historically, peace is a relatively recent phenomenon. We’ve seen it for centuries in Israel; in many parts of Africa; tribal, national, international wars continue to rage. We see religious divisions. We see it sometimes even in violence over sport. Somehow our capacity to divide people, to set one against the other, to live in suspicion and fear of one another, is incredible, but it’s not the macro perspective that I’m so much interested in today. It’s the micro; the individual; the personal.

Many people live their lives with walls in their hearts, rejecting loved ones over all sorts of reasons; being suspicious of people in the workplace – of their motives. Sometimes we build walls around our hearts for protection after being hurt. You see that a lot, sadly, in marriages, where husband and wife have their own Berlin Wall running right through the middle of a relationship – a wall that each of them built, brick by brick, over many years until they find themselves living on either side of it. Do you recognise any of that in your life? It’s just as destructive in our lives and relationships, tearing us apart, as the Berlin Wall was in tearing a community, families and lives apart.

What walls do you have in your life? What unforgiveness, fears, suspicions are you carrying around in your heart? Because these are the things that rob us of life. These are the things that stunt our growth, that give us an outlook on life that just ruins everything. I want to share with you today, as you look forward to the rest of your life, how you can tear down your walls, brick by brick. The Germans tore that wall down literally with their bare hands – this wall that had limited them for too long, and what followed was a united single Germany.

And in a real sense, that’s what I’m talking about here – tearing down the walls that divide us, brick by brick, by hand. I don’t care what you believe, or what you don’t believe. There’s really only one way to do that, and that’s through forgiveness and reconciliation – not through religion. This is how Jesus put it. Matthew 5:23:

When you’re offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come back and offer your gift to God.

He’s talking about putting reconciliation before sacrifice to God. He’s saying here: ‘Look, you can’t have a right relationship with God when you’ve got an argument going on with someone else. First, go and be reconciled with that person; then, come and make your peace with God’.

As I said, I don’t care what faith you belong to; what belief-set or values you have: We all need to deal with these issues in our lives. Just picture that mighty Berlin Wall that divided families and communities for so long. The change happened when the mood of the people swelled up. ‘Enough of the division! Enough of this separation! Enough!’ I remember at that time on television, seeing people tearing that mighty wall down with their hands. That would have been hard; that would have been painful; that would have left some hands bruised and bloodied, but they tore the wall down.

Who are the people on the other side of your walls? Perhaps it’s a family-member, a mother, a child that you haven’t spoken to for years. Perhaps it’s a wife or a husband, whom you’ve isolated. Who knows? Perhaps it’s someone in your community who believes something different, or lives differently to you. I’m not saying that we have to say that anything goes. I’m not saying that we have to say that wrong is right – just that it’s time to forgive; just that it’s time to lay aside fears and prejudices and angers and animosities … Listen. Love is always better than anger. Forgiveness is always better than unforgiveness. If you and I want to live the life we’ve been made to live, love is the answer. Tearing down the walls is the answer.

What walls need tearing down in your life? I’m not talking here about something that is so hugely complicated. It’s simple. I love the way Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesian church (4:32):

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

And there’s the key. God’s forgiven you and me everything the moment we believe in Jesus, and He did it at a huge cost – the torture, the death of His Son. Unforgiveness eats away at us like a cancer. It rots our souls. It robs us of an outlook on life that could be so full of anticipation of what the future holds. Do you believe in God? Do you want to live the life He always intended you to live? Then my friend, unforgiveness simply isn’t an option. Let me say this again: Forgiveness is not an optional extra to our relationship with God; it’s a vital element. Mark 11:25:

Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father will also forgive you.

Colossians 3:12-13:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

The list of those Bible-references about forgiveness goes on. It is not an optional extra. Trust me. As hard as it may appear, forgiving those who’ve wronged you is the most powerful thing that you can do to get a fresh beginning for your life. Friend, let me ask you this again: What walls is God calling you to tear down in your life today? Well?