To Be Better, Just Say “Yes”

So what does this mean? Aren’t we still to aspire to audacious goals? To scale unbelievable heights?

To boldly go where no man has gone before? (I threw that in just for you Steve Bellinger).

Yes. Jesus certainly did. He went where no man had gone before. But here’s where we get tangled — that ache for greatness, isn’t found because the spotlight is on us. Greatness is found in our arc toward the good. In our hunger toward the good — ultimately toward God.

Let me see if I can break this down better: Because it can be subtle, but this, I think, is where we get all hung up — in that hamster wheel of exhausting self- improvement. There’s a part of us that views “being better” as an actualized self of glory. A shining pinnacle of human success and glory. And stay with me here, because that’s exactly what Jesus was tempted with.

Right out of the box. When it was clear to the “powers of the air” that Jesus was not just some random carpenter’s son, but rather was going to the one who would “boldly go where no man has been before”. And almost as immediately as Jesus has this sense of his own destiny, he is tempted…and it’s a temptation of his own glory. His own shining moment in the sun where as Luke writes it “all the kingdoms of the world would be his.”

Jesus turns his face from this self-adulation. But you and me? Not so much. Jesus wanted to achieve — that’s for sure. Jesus is not short on ambition. Just one of his stated goals, if you remember, was “to seek and to save that which was lost”

But all Jesus wanted to do and to be, all the work he did, was oriented not toward his own glory, but to the nature and character of God. He wanted to let God show. Jesus didn’t have a relentless chart of self-improvement, Jesus had a north-star compass toward the good.

Just say Yes, I tell myself. Just say YES to the impulse for good.

This is what I hope being better looks like for me — to say yes to that nudge for good. And yes there are many different applications for it. Just saying YES to the good changes how I eat. It changes the choices I make about how much money I spend and what I spend it on.

This impulse that I believe will cause me to “shine like a star in the sky” gets super practical in urging me to exercise, and to carry my own water bottle — at a base level while also causing me to aspire to be a better wife, a better mother and a better Christian.

While also at the same time taking my gaze and my emphasis off of me and on to what the Lord is doing in the world.

You know I asked our marathon runners about this. We have 9 people running for the LaSalle team next week — they’ve raised almost $15K for clean water — that’s 300 people who are going to get clean water because of their efforts.

I asked them what lessons they are learning from this — Chris Campbell and Amber Johnson both said that training for the marathon has gotten them outside their own head — it’s given them a different perspective of their life, their efforts. It’s given them a greater sense of solidarity with others. It’s made them both bigger (in terms of the lives they are effecting) and smaller (they are not doing this alone, more aware of all the other sacrifices making this possible).

This is what being better does!

Are you tracking with me? This is important — Calvin called it our sanctification — but it is a subtle line. Here’s another example.

Friday I was leading a bible study for Opportunity International — a great Christian micro-lending agency. After my talk came Bob Lupton — many of you know him, he wrote Theirs is the Kingdom, and most recently Toxic Charity and he’s a legend in urban Christian work. I had a few minutes with him alone and asked him, “Bob, You’ve been at this almost 50 years now living in an impoverished section of Atlanta. How do stay hopeful? “ And he said, “I tell you what: I set the bar low.”

“I set the bar low. I don’t think in terms of how much I’m not achieving — or how many things are not changing. I set the bar low and then I’m free to enjoy what happens and see where God is working.”

Bob is no slouch. He’s started several thriving businesses, authored more than a dozen books, Bob Lupton has been a game changer. By any measure he has achieved — been successful. But his answer revealed a wisdom that Paul understood. Bob is simply saying yes to the good — yes to the impulses and opportunities God gives throughout the day to shine like a star in the sky. And Bob understands you shine by simply reflecting the sun.

You’re probably sick of my Mother Teresa example — but I don’t care, it’s a good one and I think I should be able to say it once a year. But you may remember she made two promises to the Lord in her 20’s. The first is that she would refuse God nothing. Whatever God asked for she would give. And secondly she would obey without delay. When she had the nudge to move toward the good (which of course is another way of saying obedience) she would just say yes.

Listen, that is a powerful way of living. If you want to be better I can think of no better advice that that example. Refuse God nothing and obey without delay. And if you are like me, one of the first things you’ll be aware of is how many excuses you will find to no say yes. Whether it’s forgiving somebody, or confessing your sin, or confronting your anger, or acknowledging your laziness, you will be astonished at just how far we live from the example of Jesus.

Everyone in this room this morning was created to shine like the stars in the sky. And one way or the other that will happen — you will shine. As Paul says it is God who is at work within you to will and to work his good pleasure. But how much better, how deeply satisfying for us to shine by participating in God’s work. By taking this mechanism for which we are already hard-wired — the impulse to be better — and saying YES to it. Repeatedly. Regularly. Responsively.

I’ve had the opportunity to reflect more deeply on what it means to live a

better life. Some of you know Sabra Reichardt. She and her husband Bill have been really important people to this church. They have provided such important support — financially and spiritually — to me, Colin, Gary. They supported some of our best art programs here, and single-handedly got this Young Life / El Salvador connection happening.

Sabra is dying. Today. This week. And people from all over the world are recording testimonies of what she has meant to them. Sabra in her late 60’s lived for months in Albania helping the administration of clinics and micro- lending groups in rural areas — without electricity. For weeks she lived in schools in central Africa — — without plumbing. Let me note: these are not vacations. This is just hard. Difficult. Sacrificial.

And now in her last moments on earth she is watching and hearing these videoed testimonies of people whose lives she changed for the better. From south Africa to India; from Lawndale to Syracuse — Sabra is just starting to know “in part what she will soon known in full” — just how rich — how good her life really was. Sabra just said yes to the good. Again and again.

Last month in my morning prayers — my Jewish devotional book had this poem written by Rabbi Jacob Rudin. It included these few lines:

Let It Not Be Said:

Death will come. Its hand will not be stayed even an instant; nor can we enter into judgment with it. Our question “Why?” will go unanswered.

But this does not mean that we are helpless in the face of death. We can and we do rob death or ultimate victory by living life as long as it is ours to live. To ask of death that it never come is futile, but it is not futility to pray that when death comes for us, it may take us from a world one corner of which is a little better because we were there.

When we are dead, and people weep for us and grieve, let it be because we touched their lives with beauty and simplicity. Let it not be said that life was good to us, but, rather, that we were good to life.

Rabbi Jacob P. Rudin (1902–1982)