LIFE MATTERS
January 5, 2014
In 1939, James Thurber released a short story called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
This short story has been regularly anthologized in numerous story collections and
was immensely popular in its day. It was made into a movie in 1947 and has been
remade recently and released a few weeks ago. The original short story followed
Walter Mitty and his wife as they traveled into Waterbury, CT for their weekly
shopping trip. We get a quick and clear sense right away that Walter Mitty lives
quite the mundane life. He slogs through his job and then slogs through these
regular trips to the city.
Walter Mitty has a thoroughly prosaic life, same old, same old. Going through the
motions is the name of the game for this man and his routines. Walter Mitty does
have one outlet, however; his imagination. Through the course of this short story,
the protagonist dreams up amazing stories in which he is the hero. At different
turns, Walter Mitty is piloting a Navy hydroplane and then later he is a fighter pilot.
In other instances, he is a successful lawyer and then a surgeon. This man, in his
quotidian life, is really only living in his daydreams. In the real world, Mitty is barely
keeping his head above water but in his daydreams he is thriving.
In the 2013 film adaptation, Mitty works at LIFE magazine. In his job, Mitty regularly
comes face to face with amazing people having amazing real life adventures but
Mitty’s only adventures are inside his mind. There is a great irony in this man
working for LIFE magazine while he seemingly doesn’t have one. There is no
adventure; there are no challenges, only the echoes of dreams lived out in a fantasy
world.
James Thurber’s story actually gave rise to the new term – “Mittyesque.” After this
story’s popularization, it became common to refer to underachieving people with
overactive imaginations as “Mittyesque” or to just plain call them Walter Mitty. In
hindsight, it would be easy to see the Israelites after their escape from slavery as a
nation of Walter Mitties. Only days removed from 400 years of slavery, they begin to
complain about being free. They fret that they ate better during slavery and that
they had a reliable way of life and that freedom was worse. They didn’t want a new
life because at least the old one was predictable. God invited them to a new way of
living and a new relationship with him and they rebelled, cowered and hid in
response.
There was a great and powerful movie that came out this fall called, 12 Years a Slave.
It is based on the true autobiographical story of Solomon Northup. He was a free
black man living in the North who was captured by slave traders and sold into
slavery in the South. Solomon was an educated man and an accomplished musician
who had a beautiful family. For 12 years, Solomon fights against overwhelming odds
to regain his freedom. Early on, Solomon is urged by some of his fellow slaves to not
let on that he is educated or that he was a free man. In order to survive, he should
submit to his new masters and do exactly what they tell him to do and forget about
the life he is trying to regain. In a profound moment, Solomon says, “ I don’t want to
survive, I want to live.” He will not be content to live the life of a slave and he will
fight for the true life he has been given.
The Israelites were just the opposite. They were offered a new life but they pined for
the old one. They dreamed about the good old days when they were enslaved. God
had patience with the complaining Walter Mitties and then led them to the region of
the Promised Land. Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan including Joshua and Caleb.
After inspecting the Promised Land, ten of the twelve spies, excluding Joshua and
Caleb, said that it would be impossible to conquer the Promised Land and again
stated that it would be better to return to Israel. God condemns the Israelites to
wander in the desert for 40 years because of their unfaithful “Mittyesque”
tendencies. Only Joshua and Caleb survive from this generation and they would lead
the next generation into the Promised Land.
Fast forward 40 years and you have the book of Deuteronomy. The Israelites are
again on the cusp of the Promised Land and so Moses gathers them together for
what will be some of his final words. Moses too will not be allowed to go into the
Promised Land but he gathers the people and gives them the book of Deuteronomy.
Deutero means second, Nomos means law. He is essentially giving them a recap of
where they have been and is giving them the law again. For a second time, in order
to prepare them for this difficult journey into their new life, Moses tells them where
they have been, where they are going and how they should journey through this
new Life with God.
This is a summary of the first three chapters of Deuteronomy. We will pick up today
in chapter 4 and see God’s directions for new life in a new land. We are starting a
seven-week series called Life Matters. This is our yearly vision series in which we
want to do two things: 1) We want to be reminded that God has called us to life. 2)
We want to be reminded of the vision and direction for SFC as we start a new year.
At SFC, we do not believe that you were given the gift of new abundant life in Jesus
so that you could live a “Mittyesque” life. We do not believe that once you become a
Christian that you are now waiting for death so that you can go to Heaven. We
believe life matters. Jesus promised his followers eternal life for those who put their
faith in him but he also promised abundant life, not a “Mittyesque” life on the
sidelines but an engaged life where you thrive. Our vision for SFC is to build a
community where life thrives. We are passionate about introducing all people in the
Bay Area to the eternal and abundant life that God offers. That is why we exist.
We believe that this life is found in three clear building blocks. If you practice these
three building blocks, we believe you will not only survive, you will also thrive. The
three building blocks for this adventure are Life in God, Life with Others and Life for
Others.
Life in God - We believe that God designed us to thrive through worship. Every
believer should engage in a meaningful lifestyle of Christ-centered worship.
Life with Others - We believe that God designed us to thrive through Christian
community. Every believer should intentionally practice their faith with other
believers.
Life for Others - We believe God designed us to thrive through Christian service.
Every believer should regularly invest in serving and sharing Jesus with those inside
and outside of the church.
We will be studying Deuteronomy for seven weeks. You might stop me right there,
“Gabe, I know this is one of those books with a lot of “don’ts” and rules and it has
been quite tedious and boring anytime I have read it.” I want you to know that this
book is about the Law, but this book is also really about life. That is counterintuitive
in modern America, and really in most of the western world. By and large, most of us
have become ungovernable. We don’t like laws and we don’t like people telling us
what laws to follow. We view laws as restrictions to our fun and our freedom. We
should view God’s law in a whole different fashion, not as restrictions but as
guardrails. God’s law keeps us moving forward in his grace. They teach us to thrive.
They teach us to grow. They teach us to live.
God’s law paves the way to Life.
After this week of introduction, we will spend two weeks on each of these life goals.
But today, I want to remind you that life matters to God and it should matter to you.
For far too long, too many Christians have made the Christian life a moralistic set of
do’s and don’ts, a list of transactions that we do to keep God from getting angry.
Unfortunately, many people forget that God left us here with a purpose. He doesn’t
beam people up to Heaven when they enter into a relationship with him. There is
something here that he has for you. A plan. A purpose. And it won’t look like the plan
your neighbor might have for himself. In fact, it will look quite different than the
American Dream that a great deal of our neighbors are chasing. Abundant living is
not about more, bigger, better or faster. It isn’t about IPO’s, a great education or the
glorification of your children. God’s plan for your life, the abundant life, is to make
an impact. To be used fully, to leave an imprint on the world around you.
All of this is especially pertinent on this, the first Sunday of 2014. Some of you woke
up on January 1st and said something that people all over our country said in
unison, “Something has to change.” You took stock of your life and maybe you saw
some “Mittyesque” qualities to it. You have been in the shadows for too long.
Everything has become mundane and quotidian and you know something needs to
change. Life matters to God and he has plans for you in 2014. Will you listen? Will
you act?
Deuteronomy 1: 3-8
The timer has gone off, 40 years have elapsed and it is time to leave the desert
behind. Forty years with the promise of a new life and it is finally going to happen. I
love verse 6, “You have been at this mountain long enough.” This statement is
loaded with literal and symbolic meaning. Mount Horeb is where God gave the law
to the Israelites some 40 years later. Mt. Horeb is another name for Mt. Sinai. You
have been circling this mountain for long enough. It’s time to do something with
what I have given you. I gave you my law, we made a covenant, and it’s time to put it
into action.
Now that Christmas has past, many of you received gifts and I am guessing some of
you might have gotten a cookbook or two. I don’t know if you know this, but some
people actually collect cookbooks. They buy old rare cookbooks. They join clubs
where they discuss their cookbooks. They talk to their friends about the nuances of
their cookbooks. But do you know what they often forget? To cook. They have a
book that allows them to create something life giving but instead it is a collector’s
item only to be discussed with other cookbook lovers. Instead of making meals for
their friends or neighbors, their nose is buried in these books admiring the words.
Luckily for us, Christians never do that with their Bibles.
God tells them, “You have been given the law, you went to Mt. Horeb, and it’s time to
get moving.” It’s time for life. And so the rest of this book, Deuteronomy, the second
law, Moses is going to remind them of the law and the Covenant, and then he is
going to say, go live life and go do something with it. Take me up on the promise of
this new land, this new life.
Deuteronomy 4:1-9
I want you to understand this tension today. I am not telling you to not embrace
God’s law. I am not telling you to abandon the church so that you can go out there
and do whatever you want, quite the opposite. But I do want us to know that there is
life out there and it is to be lived and embraced by following God’s counterintuitive
plan for your life. Verse 1 in chapter 4 says, “Follow these decrees so that you may
live.” We have discussed this before, but it is worth repeating; God’s law is not
burdensome. It is easy to misunderstand a conversation about the New Covenant
and Old covenant, grace and the law.
Sometimes when we discuss Jesus, we mention that he came to set us free from the
law so that we can live under grace. And this is true, in a sense. There are more than
600 Old Covenant laws, and we will probably break many of them in our lifetime. In
the grand scheme of things, if we break the law, we have broken ourselves away
from God. Jesus came to restore us to God. But the law is not this evil monolithic
anachronistic system. In the New Testament, Paul reminds us that the law was a
custodian; essentially it provides guardrails on the journey of life to guide people in
the absence of the Holy Spirit. Not until Jesus came, did people have the benefit of
the Holy Spirit, God living within us to guide us to right and wrong and to guide our
daily living and devotion. So the Law was a custodian, a set of guardrails to guide
people to thrive.
God’s law paves the way to life.
The same is still true today. As we talk about a life that thrives and abundant life in
2014 and beyond, God’s law are still in effect. The only difference is that if we break
the law there is grace. But God’s law in its original function was there for abundant
living. I want to fast forward to the end of this passage and introduce a phrase that is
used multiple times in the book of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 4:39-40
“So that it may go well with you, so that you may thrive.” We will see this many
times over the next several weeks. We live in a world that is becoming more and
more ungovernable. We live in a world whose mantra is “You’re not the boss of me.”
We are slick little autocrats who don’t like to be told what to do. Any mention of law,
let alone God’s law, makes people cringe. If only it was more clear that God’s law
was birthed out of love not spite.
Some young couples play a game when they first fall in love. They might say
something like, “How much do you love me?” The response is something like, “I love
you more than anything.” And then the rejoinder, “ Do you love me more than…?”
The question is, what kind of beloved would say, “do you love me enough to. …pick
up this scalding hot metal….taste this searing hot sauce….jump off this tall building?”
All of these proofs of love are inherently dangerous and not productive. God’s love
through his law is not about making you jump through hoops to prove your love. All
of his laws are for your good.
When we did our series through Psalms, we talked about sin as the breaking of
shalom. God has laws and breaking those sins is breaking shalom. Shalom is the
Hebrew word for peace but it does not simply denote the absence of war. Shalom
means “things as they should be.” Sin is things as they should not be. When we break
God’s law, even if we can’t always see the immediate consequences, they are still
present. God does not tell us to avoid adultery because he is anti-fun or anti-sex. God
is decidedly pro-sex, mainly because he invented it. He knows that adultery will
break shalom in your household and every household involved. There will be tears,
there will be anger, there will be pain and maybe much much worse. God’s laws are
not arbitrary.
God’s law is an invitation to life, abundant life. And it runs completely counter to the
world’s roadmap for life. Most every magazine, TV show and movie tells you to do
what feels good, and do it as much as you like. That leads to greed, which leads to
stealing, which leads to the breaking of shalom. That leads to lust, which leads to
sexual immorality, which leads to the breaking of shalom. God has a plan for your
life but it will go against the grain. He isn’t a grandfatherly character in the sky who
is blushing about the embarrassing sinfulness of humanity and he isn’t an angry
deity armed with lightning bolts who is so disgusted with your sin that he can’t wait
to punish you for them. He is a loving God who gave you wise laws to lead to
abundant living.
For some reason we often miss this with God but it makes complete sense in the
world around us. We don’t see policemen as punitive fuddy duddies when they pull
over inebriated drivers. We see them as protective guardians who have seen too
many people ruin their lives in such a state. We don’t see angry authoritarians when
they halt burglaries; we see a protective force that is looking out for the common
good. It is just much less obvious when it comes to God. We assume his laws are to
limit our freedom and joy not to multiply them.
For the next several weeks, we will be in a book of the law, but we will be talking
about grace and freedom. Seemingly, those two things contradict one another. The
opposite is actually true. God has plans for your lives and he doesn’t want to see you
ruin it. He wants to see you thrive despite the fact that we often end up sabotaging
ourselves. Don’t miss this: God’s law was crafted out of love. He wants you to know
life as he designed it. He wants us to be participants in shalom.
James Thurber’s brother had a grand idea when they were young boys. They
decided to play “William Tell” with a real bow and arrow. James Thurber was the
one with the apple on his head. In a terrible misfire, James Thurber was wounded
and almost completely blinded. I am sure if James and his brother had asked their
loving father if playing “William Tell” was a good idea, he would have quickly said,
“No.” Not because he is a boring fuddy duddy but because his command would have
been born out of love. How much more so for our Father. I want to go one step
further today. While that “William Tell” moment was a terrible moment for James
Thurber, he attributed a great deal of his success to that moment. In the midst of
that newfound darkness, James Thurber developed a creative gift. Even after that
painful moment, when darkness invaded his life, something good was able to
emerge. Some of you today have broken God’s shalom in absolutely epic ways. Some
of you today are right in the middle of breaking shalom. Maybe in your home you
are violating your marriage vows; maybe at work you are participating in some
highly illegal or immoral practices. Many of you today have felt the ripple effect of
breaking shalom. The darkness has spilled into your life in a very real way. I want
you to know today that God can redeem all things and he can use all things. He can
bring beauty from ashes and like the woman at the well he is willing to say beautiful
and powerful words, “Who is left to condemn you? Then neither do I. Go and sin no
more.”