Audio transcription
Our culture talks a lot about to-do lists: doing things, experiencing things, achieving things before time runs out. It is mainly used to talk about travel, places to see, places to go. So what about Christians who talk about to-do lists?
This is the question from a listener named Christine: “Pastor John, hello. Recently you wrote this on Twitter: “Retirees are quickly preparing their bucket lists before they die, as if there is no glorious resurrection, no new earth, no wonders of the new world, no presence of Christ to sweeten each adventure in eternity. This is a very strange way for Christians to act in a world of desperate need. It’s poignant.
“I feel this pressure as a twenty-year-old woman. All my friends also have lists of places to go and visit before they get married and have kids. I admit that I am tempted here, to live all my adventures now. It’s not just a temptation for retirees. Can you expand on this point further for me? This seems related to your themes of not wasting our lives and “anti-retirement”. But how do you balance this eternal hope for the next life while still taking and enjoying vacations with your family in this life?
Let me state upfront that, yes, I am on a small crusade to motivate Christians over 65 (and those who plan to be over 65 someday) not to waste the rest of their healthy life in slavery to a worldly mentality according to which earthly adventures must take place in our last years, as if on the other side of death, in just a few years, the adventures with Jesus would not be a thousand times best. Instead, they will likely be improved if we spend our remaining healthy years here serving others rather than chasing earthly excitements.
I don’t know how you can read and believe the Bible, look at this broken and suffering world, this lost world, and think otherwise. Truly not. The baby boomers, my generation – I’m the oldest baby boomer, only eleven days missing (my birthday is January 11, 1946) – the baby boomers own half of the 156 trillion dollars of assets of the country. An estimated seventy-five million American baby boomers will be or will be retired in seven years – all of us, more or less, will retire by 2030.
And about 28 percent of those 75 million baby boomers call themselves evangelical Christians. This represents approximately 21 million people. If we had the will, we could complete the Great Commission before we left the scene, both because of the hundreds of thousands of us and because of the billions of dollars spent sending others to the less fortunate peoples. affected by the world.
So, perhaps you understand why I am on a crusade to tell Christians: “Don’t waste your last two decades chasing earthly excitements when excitements a thousand times better await you just on the horizon of this life. » It would be like a person about to inherit a million dollars spending the last mile to collect shiny pennies. It seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to spend the last mile emptying your pockets for those lost and in need.
Focus on mindset
Now I know Christine didn’t ask me about what I just talked about, which is the retiree. She asked me about twenty-somethings who had bucket lists of adventures to experience before they got married. And then more generally, she wonders about the relationship between eternal hope and family vacations.
“Death is not the end of your to-do list. It’s the beginning.”
The reason I’ve spent half my time talking about the last twenty years of life is that I think if I could convince some twenty-something Christians to this way of thinking about future decades, it would would inevitably have a powerful impact on their lives. current decade. That would be the case. The reason people waste the last few decades of their lives is because the world taught them that over the previous sixty years, including their twenties.
So, I would say the same thing about globetrotting at 25 as I would at 65: is the mentality that governs this lifestyle a biblical mentality? That’s the question. “Is this a biblical mindset?” is another question whether it makes sense to take a family vacation or whether it makes sense to buy your rail pass and spend the summer after college visiting every country in Europe. Both of these decisions may be right. The question is: what is your state of mind? Is this biblical?
That’s another question, because we can’t devote every hour of every day or every day of every year to focused, productive, worthwhile work, whether in Christian ministry or some other vocation. It is biblical and wise to create respite, rest, work in our lives, both for the pleasure of leisure and for the rightful enjoyment of God’s world. These two impulses are very different from a worldly mentality that ignores the needs of the world, the brevity of life, the joys of service, and the preciousness of the glory of Christ.
Not only is respite from work wise and biblical, such that vacations and days off are completely legitimate, but the adventures themselves – the ones you might have during the times you’re not working – the adventures they themselves need not be merely gratifying. .
For radically Christ-exalting Christians, affairs (whether in your twenties or in your seventies) will not be conceived as simply a check-in for earthly excitements before you get married or before you die. These adventures will be designed as adventures with God – seeking His work and glory, eager to build experiences into our lives for greater usefulness in the cause of Christ, eager to approach every wonder with adoration, eager to cross the path of people who are providentially placed there. for you to bless.
So my main desire for twenty and seventy year olds is that they think like the Bible and not like the world, that they think more about the thoughts of God than the thoughts of men, that they look at the world from through a biblical lens. That would include at least these seven perspectives, which I’m just going to name.
Seven Ways to Think About God’s Thoughts
1. God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Therefore, we are residents and exiles here.
2. This land is not our home. “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).
3. Life is a vapor, with many troubles here, and eternity is endless, no trouble there – only joy (James 4:14; Psalm 16:11).
4. We are called to have a healthy, heavenly mindset, with our priorities and desires shaped by things above, things unseen, things eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
5. “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21) – more gain than anything on earth. Death is not a threat to happiness. You don’t need to put happiness here because death is coming. It’s ridiculous – I mean, ridiculous. Death is not a threat to happiness. It is the door to happiness. This isn’t the end of your to-do list. It’s the beginning. Come on, we are Christians.
6. Many people are lost, broken, and it is more important to help them than to visit places (Galatians 6:10).
7. Finally, life exists, young and old, for Christ’s sake, to give Him an appearance of supreme value (Philippians 1:20). “One life, it will soon be over; only what is done for Christ will last.
I believe that if we adopt these seven biblical perspectives, God will show us how to use our early and later years on earth.
