The Change in Perspective That Can Set You Free
To borrow an idiom from Cervantes’s Don Quixote, I am going to ‘tilt at a windmill’. I want to challenge us to reconsider how we interpret and use a familiar and favorite scripture. There is a phrase recorded in both Matthew 25 and Luke 19 that is a favorite of motivational speakers, leadership trainers, and spiritual guides. I’ve heard it referenced countless times at conferences, trainings, and sermons. It has risen to the ranks of scriptural superlative nearly unparalleled in the rest of the Bible.
The verse comes from Jesus’ parable of the talents. He commends the two stewards who invested wisely what he had left them and returned a doubling of the principal. Jesus says that the owner commends them with the words, “well done, good and faithful servant.” It seems their good stewardship is applauded and rewarded by the one who entrusted them with something that was not their own.
How many times have you heard this verse referred to as the end goal of the Christian life? It is frequently lifted up as the great payoff we long to hear when we stand before Jesus on the final day, commending us for a life well lived. It is the final verdict on whether our life produced the fruit God created us to produce. Did we succeed? Did we do his will well? Will a full accounting of our life hold up under our Lord’s scrutiny? Will all of our accomplishments save us from the sentence meted out to the unfaithful servant who was cast out of the owner’s presence? All this depends on how well we live our life, or so we are led to believe.
So deeply has this idea permeated our perspective that whether by intent or default, the idea that this is the ultimate goal of every Christian has spurred far too many on to a life of production driven discipleship under the mantra that being a disciple of Jesus means producing fruit. I know, because I was on that cycle for a very long time. The image that I carried for most of my adult life went like this. I’m standing before Jesus on the final day. I begin to stack behind me crates of fruit; the fruit that I believe I was created to produce. As a passionate fruit producer, I proudly build a wall of accomplishments that bear witness to my wise investment of the talent God gave me. My PhD, my successful marriage, my wonderful kids, writing 16 books, seminary president, national Association president, church planter, and the list goes on and on. Impressive, amazing qualifications that certainly will bring the smile and admiration of my Lord on my final day.
Once the fruit is all stacked, with my heart pounding and sweat pouring off my brow, I turn and look my Savior in the eye and await those words that everyone is telling me should be my due based on my prodigious accomplishments. And then something happens deep inside me. Something undeniable, overwhelming, and terrifying. As I await the words from my Savior, as he gazes upon my pitiful pallets of productivity, I know in my spirit that my produce laden boxes are not all filled with fresh, ripe, Kingdom fruit. Behind them, underneath them, and sometimes all the way through them are all of my failures, backsliding, doubts, carnal motivations, compromises, conformity, and downright sin. Will he see all the imperfections, the bruising, the rot in my fruit? Of course he will. And if his commendation of “well done, good and faithful servant” rests solely on the quantity of good fruit in comparison with the preponderance of my failures and sins, I can only be led to one conclusion. As Jesus examines my life, his statement to me will be, “well, I guess that’s all I could’ve expected.” He points me to a small door on the side where I can quietly duck my head and slip into heaven. That’s what awaits me when I take an honest assessment of the balance of fruit and failure in my life.
Knowing that to be true, how do I respond when I hear this verse lifted up again and again as the ultimate goal of my life? Well, I work harder. I try to get rid of the bad fruit. I strive even harder to produce more good fruit. I try to change the balance of the equation so the good fruit will overcome bad fruit. I become more committed to doing good work. I measure things more carefully. The list can go on and on. The end result is a life lived breathlessly, anxiously, feverishly pursuing more and more productivity. Do more, accomplish more, produce more, make your life count. These are the drumbeats of the soul driven by the desire to earn Jesus‘s commendation at life’s end.
The sinister truth lurking behind this motivation is the reality that no matter how much we do, it will never be enough. Never. Our human frailty and sinfulness will always find its way into the edges, and sometimes to the core of our fruit producing ways. The scales never balance. If we believe Jesus looks into our heart and soul and understands our motivations and the disposition of our heart, can we ever believe that we can do enough good works to render the sum of our sins and failures inconsequential?
I find too many Christian leaders in bondage to a headlong pursuit of productivity. We measure our success by the kingdom things we accomplished. We justify our burnout, our stress, the damage done to marriages and families, and all the other leadership failures on a heart that sincerely wants to produce fruit for Jesus. But does that glorify him? Is this treadmill of productivity that drives us to lifestyles that are unhealthy really the way God created us to live and lead? Put another way, would God call us into a position of leadership, knowing that the only way for us to be successful in the role is to work ourselves to death? Has productivity become the unexamined presupposition for all Kingdom work?
Oswald Chambers makes the chilling statement, “the greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for him.” Put another way, we spend so much time working for Jesus that we leave no time for him to work in us. Too often, the penchant for endless productivity is driven by this desire to hear these words of Jesus on our final day. And deep in the soul of every leader must be the realization that no matter how much we work or produce, we cannot honestly in our heart of hearts believe that we will deserve this kind of admonition from our Lord. So why are we doing it?
Let me offer an alternative motivation. In Matthew chapter 3, Jesus is being baptized by John the Baptist, and when he is coming out of the water, something amazing happens. A dove descends upon him, the heavens are opened, and his heavenly Father pronounces an unequivocal statement of who Jesus is and what his disposition is before his Father. Now we must remember, this commendation comes from the Father before Jesus called a disciple, healed anyone, fed 5,000, walked on water, turned water into wine, raised the dead, or preached one word about the coming kingdom of God, salvation, and grace. In fact, at this moment, Jesus had not done or accomplished one thing in his professional life for which anyone should commend him. His fruit boxes were empty. His ministry had just begun. Literally before he could take a breath after his baptism or a minute of his official ministry on earth had commenced, the Father has something to say about him. Right there. Right where he is. Right in this moment. Before he could point to anything that would point back to himself, God proclaims this word. “This is my beloved son, in him I am well pleased.“
My dear friends, have you heard those words spoken to you? My thesis for this little blog is simply this, I believe God calls us into a life where we are to live from his pronouncement of ‘well pleased’, and not for some future commendation of ‘well done’. Moving from well pleased is where all of the power is to live and lead for Jesus. Living from well pleased is the confirmation of our identity in Christ that is the firm foundation upon which we can do anything he would ask of us. Living from well pleased moves us beyond ourselves and allows us to be transformed from owners pursuing productivity to stewards embracing faithfulness. Living from well pleased means living in the trust and faith and daily provision of God and God alone. Living from well pleased is the life of the steward humbly laying his or her life before God and letting God do all that he wants in us and through us.
How much freedom would we have in our lives and in our leadership if our sole motivation was to live and lead with the joy and the peace that emanates from this pronouncement? What if we started every morning letting those words permeate our spirit, and then went forth to make hard decisions, live in a deeply broken and sinful world, and lead in the most challenging of circumstances. What if we led not needing to be successful, receive accolades, or check off a list of achievements, but solely knowing that if we are faithful, as one approved by God, we will be at peace in all he’s called us to do?
Living from well pleased helps us shape our priorities according to Kingdom principles. It allows us to absorb criticism and deflect praise onto other people. It keeps us amazingly humble. And it also gives us the courage to do anything, anything God would call us to do. When I die and stand before Jesus, I want to do so in the confidence of one in whom God has already pronounced, ‘well pleased’. And when he examines my life with all of its flaws and failures, I pray he will see a heart that reflects my passionate pursuit of a life that honored what God has already done for me and in me. That, more than anything I produce or accomplish in my life, just might bring the words from lips of Jesus, “well done, good and faithful servant”.
What motivates your life and leadership?
