Today we’re talking about success and what that really looks like in our lives. And like we just saw, there are lots of things that need our attention and sometimes it can be really confusing where to put our energy and our time in order to ensure we’re living successful lives.
Our thought for this week and this service was really pretty simple. At the start of a New Year, establish a solid footing for how to live out our lives in 2008.
The definition of success equals “a favorable or desired outcome: the attainment of wealth, favor or power.” That’s what Webster says success is and that’s what our culture says it is.
My goal today is to help us re-clarify/re-define what success is for our lives. The premise is this: success is way more spiritual than we think it is. It involves your spirit life much more than we think it does.
I am a real goal-oriented guy. I love to look ahead in my life and set markers for myself and then to give everything in my life a push to achieve something better. I love that stuff. I know not everybody is like that but something happens inside of me. I think when we know that we’re headed a certain direction and when we know that that direction is forward and focused up and to the right, something happens to us and its good.
I have a list of some of my personal success goal areas, the larger ones, but I wanted to check with you first to see if how I was thinking was true with you. Help me out. What big segments of life, if you had to set goals as we start a new year, would you set these success goals in? Fitness. Family. Career. Money. Influence. Growth. Financial. Spiritual.
Here’s my list:
Career
Health/Fitness
Family
Money
Love – spiritual life/soul
Now normally how we approach these areas, if you are a goal- oriented person or if anyone has lead you through this kind of exercise before, would be to divide each area up into segments and then begin to get as specific as we possibly could in each of these areas.
For fitness I would like to work out 3 times a week in 2008, I would like to lose 20 pounds by September, and I would like to run a marathon in May. Then we do the same things in the other areas of money, career, family, and get pretty specific such as: I want to grow my sales by X percent, I want to make X more dollars, or we want to have 4 supper meals together every week as a family.
If you’re a Christian or a follower of Jesus then you might add in a section on your spiritual life such as, I want to read my Bible more, I want to spend more time praying, etc.
Normally we tend to compartmentalize our lives and say in each one of these areas I want to do more/better or learn more and that is what defines success for us.
Well here’s what I would like to do. I’d like to challenge our thinking a bit on all this. Not that setting goals is bad at all, in fact, every year I do it and I personally think that you should too. But the change or challenge that I want you to think about is this: where is the base or center of success in our lives and how do we actually determine what success even is for us?
Even for this one year or for our future, how can we get a better handle on the right definition of success or real achievement in our lives?
Let me try to answer this question with a story from Jesus’ life.
So Jesus is walking along one day and as was often the case He was teaching people about the Kingdom of God, just kinda relaxed like. But, then very abruptly, some of the so-called religious authorities of the day started to question Him pretty negatively and they started taunting Him any way they could just to get Him off His game or to see if they could get Him into trouble. I gotta tell you, these guys were such selfish jerks. See, in a political way these religious authorities had a lot of power, and so if they could catch Jesus saying the wrong thing, or breaking one of their rules then they would have a reason to ban His teaching or maybe even kill Him. Because He challenged their “rules” they hated him for it.
You know it’s remarkable to me as I read Scripture how close these guys were to Jesus. I mean they were right there, but their religious rules and their inability to change stopped them from seeing/hearing the Truth.
Anyways, Jesus is sitting there and they throw out this question; a self righteous religious leader with a tricky question.
“What is the greatest commandment ever given in the Bible?”
If He answers wrong, they’ve got more reason to keep grinding Him. Now forget these religious rulers and listen to what Jesus says
because His answer echoes down throughout history. What is the greatest commandment for people to follow?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. That is the greatest commandment.”
Matthew 22:37
Jesus said before you do anything else in life get this one thing figured out. Where is your heart at with God? Figure out how much you really love God before you figure out anything else. Now let me connect that with another verse from Scripture that is probably in the top 5 most important lines in the Bible. It certainly is in my top 5. King Solomon writes this in Proverbs 4:23:
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23
Jesus says love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. The Book of Wisdom says to us to guard your heart first, take care of your Spirit first, take care of your soul first above all else. Before you make any other goals, before you try to change any other segments of life, ask yourself this: How is your heart?
“Above all else, guard your heart.” Why? Because it is the wellspring of life. It is the starting point of everything that flows from our lives, it is the beginning of all things for our whole lives, and it is the birthplace, the center, the roots, and the cradle of Life.
Jesus said love God with all your heart, mind and soul. That’s what is most important. Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, says, “above everything else, guard your heart.”
So here’s the 2008 goal/resolution shift I’d like you to think about. This is sort of a new definition of success; that success isn’t just about departments and compartments of life, getting better or more. In fact, I think that breaking life’s success into compartments is totally the wrong way to go. Let me tell you why.
When we think in compartments, catch this, it keeps our heart out of every other area of life. I think when we compartmentalize success in our lives it leaves no room for God in any one of these other areas which is just not the design of life as it was meant to be. Let me show you.
So when we say this compartment is our career compartment, we’re gonna set these goals and be successful here. This one is our money compartment, and we’re gonna do this or that and have more money, but it’s not connected to the next thing. The family compartment; I can be successful here too without it being connected to my money and career compartments. Fitness or health – not connected to career or money. My spiritual life compartment is down here. My goals – I’ll go to church more this year and I’ll read my bible more, but I’m not gonna connect this spiritual compartment to my money compartment or the career compartment or even the priorities I set up in my family.
People, we were never created to have our souls cut off and compartmentalized from the rest of our lives. That was never the design but somehow in the culture we live in, success has come to mean something that has nothing to do with our hearts. Somehow success has become money, power, physical prowess, or a career that’s rocketing up the ladder. You can have all these things in our world and be called successful and yet have an itty bitty heart and a soul that is under-developed and a soul that is un-involved in the rest of your life. And I just need to tell you that that is not what success looks like. Growing your life from the well-spring or the center and allowing all the different parts of your world to spring out from your heart; that’s where real success comes from.
So let me give you a different picture. What if instead of compartments for the sections of our lives we want to further develop this new year, what if everything we did or wanted to do or become actually did start with our hearts? What if we truly did love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul and then out of that overflow came all the other parts of our lives?
Picture a big heart right in the center and put all the other compartments in the big ©. What if they all flowed out of the heart – the centre.
Life and family
Choices / $
Health and Fitness Future/Career
Doesn’t that make quite a difference when you are setting goals?
So I was sitting there writing this during the week and I got to this point and I immediately had this “Dean, you sound so much like a preacher” feeling inside of me. You know, just forget about money and power and career and all that other good stuff and those goals and just focus on your heart and everything will be all right. Trust me, I know that that sounds like a preacher.
Well, just hear what I’m actually saying; there’s nothing wrong with setting financial goals, or fitness goals, or career goals or any other kinda goal. That’s all good. But what I’m saying is that unless your heart, unless your spirit is connected to the source (well spring), all that other stuff just runs dry after awhile.
And don’t just trust me on that, but trust Jesus. Here’s what He said:
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul . . . “
How much time and energy are we putting into just chasing a dollar so we can be “successful”. Does that make sense?
“A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
How much energy do we expend setting our lives up in such a way so we look “successful” according to our culture’s view?
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these (other) things will be given to you as well . . .”
See, what Jesus is asking us to do is to think like He does, like God does, about our lives. To think in terms of the Kingdom of Heaven and of eternity and not to just think with a human perspective of money and things as success, and I guess what my job is in these moments is to try to help you see that “Kingdom of Heaven” success picture a bit more clearly.
Because to be honest, it’s very different than the way we think as humans. The Kingdom of Heaven is almost upside down. We think getting a raise equals success. It’s completely other than our culture states but that’s what‘s so intriguing about it as well.
Jesus says what if you and I just focused on our hearts (well spring) and on our walk with God? What if that was the main thing and then we wait for God to do what He does best which is show up and lead us to new life in all of those other areas.
See, the Scripture says that when we have Christ in our lives we become new inside, new creations. His spirit inside of our heart makes us as new and allows us to think and act and live and speak in new ways with our lives.
See, I’ve been following Jesus for a long time and once in awhile I just ask myself, am I becoming new? Am I changing? Is my life more and better?
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10
If the answer to my question is, “well, I’m not sure” then I better check and see if I’m still following Jesus. Cause if I really am my life should shine like new.
So I got thinking, what if it’s true what Jesus said? What if success really is all about the direction of our hearts and our soul’s ability to soak up more of God? What if it is that? That allows for the rest of our life to fall into place.
Then my question is simply this: what can I do to grow my heart? What can I do to enlarge the capacity of my soul? And shouldn’t that be my main focus during this year ahead? I mean doesn’t it make a ton of sense to do whatever is necessary to expand the capacity of the heart since everything else flows from that center?
So, last spring I spent a few days thinking about this stuff. How can I make sure my heart and my soul are constantly growing and expanding? What I did was pretty simple, but it has been extremely helpful to my spiritual life. You might want to spend some time on this for your own life as you start a new year. I just wrote down a list of the top 7 things that grow my heart or enlarges my spirit. I just said to myself, “Dean, if you had a whole day/week just to focus on expanding your heart, what would you do?”
For me:
1 – Music/worship – it puts me in a different heart space
2 – Time with Jesus – every time I journal it grows my heart
3 – Pam – my wife is the closest person to Jesus I know so my thinking is if I spend time with Pam I’ll get more like Jesus
4 – Laughter – it releases something in my heart. If there is no laughter, it shows a shrinking soul
5 – Friends – community – when you share your life your heart grows
6 – Adventure/Risk – stepping out and trying something new always reminds me how big and faithful God is
7 – Serving – when I lead or help someone in need it grows my heart. There’s something about getting outside our own lives for a bit that stretches our hearts.
Now, that’s my life. I know that if I engage my life on a daily basis with that stuff my heart will grow and my spirit will flourish. That space in my life will get bigger and the flow to all the other areas will enlarge.
My challenge to you is this and my question to you is this: Do you know what it is that grows your heart? What is it that’s on your heart – stretching list? Are you ready to engage in those activities in the year ahead? In the Kingdom of Heaven, that’s where success actually springs from. Think about this list right now. Ask yourself, how am I gonna expand that soul in the year ahead?
I’d like to close with my story just in case you think all this stuff is a bunch of malarkey - some preacher just talking. Here’s what happened to me this year. I actually saw this backward Kingdom of Heaven thing work in my life this year.
Now I’m not too proud of what I’m gonna say next, honest, but I haven’t always been as great a father as I could have been these last years. A few years ago as we were having kids this church was expanding quickly and I was working a lot in all that and my main focus was work not kids. And as the kids started growing up I just let Pam handle more and more of the work load at home. I let her drive the kids to practice or games or lessons and I was at work. The first year my boys played soccer I don’t think I got to one game. The first year they played hockey I was on my phone at every game I attended which wasn’t many. Anyway, over time, it was becoming very obvious to the kids and to Pam that work was more important to me than them. A typical story.
So, a couple of years ago I tried to set some goals to change all that and I really zeroed in on that compartment. I went to more games and was more active at home but it was forced. Then this year some things changed. I decided to quit working on being a better Dad, quit setting goals about home and family time and just spent some time growing my heart with God more than ever before.
All of a sudden my desires changed and I can’t quite figure out why. I just don’t want to miss anything with my kids now – hockey, soccer, trips to the store, or playing video games.
The key was that it has nothing to do with subdividing it. It is not a goal to persue. I don’t want to be a better Dad. I want to have more room for God. I want my heart to expand and as it does – the upside down Kingdom of Heaven. God is making me a better Dad/Husband and it’s not me - it’s God. To be honest, it’s way easier than trying on my own.
People, hear what God is saying. Expand the ability your heart has to soak up God. Seek first the Kingdom of God and then all that other stuff will line up. Guard your heart above all else as it is the wellspring of life. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. When you do that, prepare yourself because He will make you new on the inside and your life will never be the same. It will be more and better life than you could ever imagine.
To close, take the chance to show God He’s first in our lives, the chance to show Him that we love Him, and the chance to expand our hearts.
|
